The Trick is to Keep Breathing
by Numpty
Summary: Set after episode 2.10, Hunted. The boys stick around in Peoria to search for Ava when another hunt catches Dean's eye. One that might just drive him crazy...Hurt!Dean, Protective!Sam, and plenty of angst along the way! Now complete!
1. Carry that Weight

Hey everyone, I'm finally back with a new story! :) This will be a multi-chapter fic set during the immediate aftermath of episode 2.10, Hunted. The title comes from a book by Janice Galloway that has always stayed with me many years after I first came across it.

I want to say an enormous thank you to Sharlot for being such an awesome friend and beta over the past few months. You rock!

**The Trick is to Keep Breathing**

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 1 – Carry that Weight**

Blood. Great swathes of crimson that spattered the darkened room, drenching body and bedspread in grotesque Rorshach patterns of death. The puckered, torn skin where the throat had been cut was little more than a warm-up act for the performance of the artist who had painted the room with psychopathic enthusiasm. So much blood. Not a mercy killing, nor mere pest control.

Enjoyment. Time taken to savour the kill.

Ava's fiance hadn't had a chance.

Dean Winchester gave his head a tiny shake, hoping to dispel the ugly image that had sharpened from mere visual horror to a jagged nausea that had begun wriggling in the pit of his stomach. The road in front of him was a blank canvas, awaiting the clotted trails and splatters of blood that seemed to materialise across its surface in ever more gruesome patterns as the Impala surged onwards.

Bad Company's _Seagull_ was turned down low in the car, matching Dean's gloomy mood and providing a dreary yet welcome alternative to the panic he was trying to suppress. He refused to even contemplate the implications of what they'd found at that house, for Sam or for himself, but still the blood remained like a rusty film across his eyes.

He'd seen the viscous liquid many times before, the actual figure somewhere in the region of worryingly depressing – a number that was impossible to quantify in terms that weren't catastrophic. As a child he'd become desensitised to the primal life-and-death shock that the sight of wildly haemorrhaging blood elicited in those for whom such a sight was blessedly a rarity.

Dean had barely been at an age capable of even comprehending the world around him when John Winchester had gruffly handed him a tarnished Colt 45. loaded with gleaming silver bullets. With a few succinct, economical words that still rang in the young hunter's ears with a wisdom forever imbued with awed reverence, his father had demanded his assistance in the assassination of a werewolf that had shredded five people in their borrowed locale. For the young Dean, that night had been an education in so many more ways than his father would ever have wanted. The werewolf had eventually been taken down, in a commotion of slashing and snarling, by the trembling shot of a gravely injured John Winchester while his son watched on, terrified almost to the point of rigidity.

That night he'd blankly sewn his father's skin back together, the Winchester patriarch's terse directions evaporating any tears he might have had the temerity to shed before they had even formed. The deep and wrenching fear for his father had been firmly and irrevocably internalised, never to be allowed expression in any other way but anger and motion.

But he couldn't think about his father. Not then. A grief so complex, so mired in fear and disappointment...in guilt and self-loathing.

In total friggin' frustration!

And an anger so fierce it had become independent; a separate entity that sucked persistently from his strength and resolve like a greedy parasite.

But his father was gone, and Dean had become so confused about how he felt about the man that his own reaction to the mere _thought _of John Winchester would have been a mystery even to himself. And losing control was something he couldn't afford to do, not when Sammy needed him so badly.

How could his father have said...and then just...left...

Dean flicked his eyes from the road, casting a brief but assessing glance over his brother's dozing form. Sam was scrunched awkwardly in the passenger seat, long, pipe-cleaner legs crammed into the footwell at angles that looked as if they ought to have been physically impossible. His arms lay in a loose cross over his lap, fingers twitching slightly as he lay in a daze that robbed him of wakefulness without rewarding him with rest.

The younger man's forehead was propped up only by the passenger window, the glass fogging slightly with each stuttering breath. Every so often he'd snort slightly, head tipping precariously from its delicate position. Dean had already lost himself several hundred pretend dollars as he mentally bet against Sam being able to maintain the balance.

The elder Winchester had been watching his little brother for a while. On the drive from Ava's house, the silence had been stifling, tension billowing out from the two men and into the air like plumes of smoke. Sam had said little beyond monosyllabic murmurs since he'd found the missing woman's blood-flecked engagement ring lying discarded on the floor, and as soon as they'd returned to the Impala the younger man had pointedly turned to stare resolutely out of his window.

Dean was worried. It was a state of mind that was becoming so regular that it was now almost his default setting. He couldn't remember a time when he hadn't felt heavy hands pushing downwards on his shoulders, holding him under the choppy surface of his emotions, gripping him unassailably as he slowly drowned in their unfathomable depths.

The events of the past few days –_ months –_ refused to compute; error messages flashing up and shutting down his mental programming without warning or reason. He didn't know _how_ he was feeling what he was feeling. It seemed like more than anyone should ever have to feel.

Or maybe it was just him.

Maybe other people would be able to cast aside the guilt at being responsible for their father's eternal torture in Hell, or the self-loathing of being the inept protector of a brother who seemed determined to walk right into the very danger he was trying to prevent.

But Dean kept going. He always kept going. For although the elder hunter wanted nothing more than to lock the Impala's doors and drive his beaten and bruised brother all the way to the end of the friggin' Earth and stow the kid away where no demon sonofabitch would ever look, he knew he could never deny Sam anything. Not since his baby brother had gawped up at him in wide-eyed awe from where he was cradled in Dean's four year-old arms on the night their mother had died.

Dean knew he would have been kidding himself if he'd thought he had any other option than to unwillingly cooperate with Sam's quest to explore the 'destiny' that kept skipping in teasing circles around them, smiling enigmatically all the while. The Gordon Walker fiasco had taught him that if he didn't, Sam would just ditch him and do it anyway. And hadn't that just turned out so friggin' well?

And despite what Sam had said, about wanting his big brother to stick around, Dean couldn't rid himself of the fear that he might wake up one morning to find that the stubborn kid had taken off again.

As they crested the curve of an urban hill, an electric blue vacancy sign seemed to rise out of the watercolour oranges and reds of the cityscape before them like a homing beacon, reluctantly drawing the elder hunter's gaze from where it had been contemplating his brother. They were both exhausted, long past the point that anything other than deep, restorative sleep could fix.

Right, like _that_ was going to happen.

Nevertheless, at the very least Dean wanted to get his brother somewhere he could check him over, and to give him a pillow more comfortable and secure to rest against than the Impala's window. The elder Winchester hadn't forgotten the fight he'd overheard between Sam and Gordon whilst incapacitated in that infernal chair.

He was certain that there would be bruises beyond those which Sam had managed to acquire on his face – being kicked through a wall tended to have that effect, as Dean himself could testify – though his brother hadn't complained once. Not to mention the fact that the kid had also been in the vicinity of two grenade explosions – and Dean was _so_ not going anywhere near the memory of how he'd felt in hearing what he'd thought was his brother being blasted to smithereens...

Despite Sam neglecting to be forthcoming about the nature of any injuries he might have had, Dean's keen gaze had been cataloguing every wince, every sigh, every slight favouring of limb, and he intended to cross-reference his checklist with his brother when they were safely inside.

He wasn't mentioning the fact that his own head felt like it had been cleaved in half from where the butt of Gordon's rifle had slammed into him. When raising a hand to the burgeoning lump on his temple he half expected to feel the slimy squidginess of uncovered cerebral cortex sliding underneath his fingertips rather than smooth skin. Sam hadn't asked how Gordon had taken him down, and it wasn't as if Dean planned on offering the information. A few painkillers and he'd be fine – surreptitiously taken of course; it wouldn't do to alert his brother to the injury. Sam was apt to worry about these things.

Dean eased the Chevy across the motel's gravel parking lot, noting in his periphery that Sam had begun to stir as the small stones crunched under the rolling of the Impala's tires. The younger man stretched slightly as they came to a halt, shoulders clicking and clacking like a typewriter as he contorted himself in the confined space.

"You okay?" Dean tossed across, twisting in his seat to fully gauge the truthfulness of the response.

Sam scrunched his features, inhaling a long, deep breath that quickly triggered a yawn of black hole proportions. "Uh, yeah. I'm fine."

"Really?" Dean replied, wondering if he looked as sceptical as he felt. "'Cause you _look_ like crap."

Sam frowned, eyes shifting to linger on his big brother's temple, and Dean knew his dastardly scheme had been foiled. "Yeah, well, you don't look so great yourself. What did Gordon hit you with anyway?"

"The rifle he was tryin' to kill _you_ with." Dean answered shortly, conveying the end of his commitment to the issue by turning away and levering his door open. He really didn't want to have this conversation now, but Sam apparently had other ideas.

"What, so _you_ were the one who–?" Sam unfurled himself from the Impala, limbs growing outwards from the opening like petals on a blooming flower. He let the door drift shut and then turned to frown at Dean across the car's roof, dawning awareness cascading in a waterfall down his features.

"I'm gonna go check us in. You grab our stuff." Dean cut in brusquely, clearing his throat with an air of finality and striding off towards the motel office before his brother could move to stop him.

The elder Winchester knew he had to avoid talking about Gordon, and the circumstances that had led to his kidnapping. Though he and Sam had cleared a small patch of air between them that allowed them to function with bearable breathing space, Dean could almost see the swirling film of acrid smelling danger that lingered on. The easiest option was just to not talk about it, to not test the limits of his tenuous control.

Dean took his time checking in, hoping that Sam would lose interest in continuing the conversation.

The sleepy, doddering old man that was manning the front desk barely spared Dean a glance beyond what would have been necessary to determine the young hunter's status as a member of the human race. Dean shook his head slightly, amusement mixing with exasperation. He might have been a friggin' Wendigo and the proprietor probably wouldn't have noticed. In all likelihood, he'd just have asked it what kind of room it wanted and for how long.

By the time the elder Winchester had acquired their room keys and traipsed back outside, Sam was sitting slumped in boneless chaos on a bench outside the motel room nearest the Impala. Closer inspection revealed that the kid had slipped into another fitful doze, a light snore rolling out from his gaping mouth in a way that Dean would have found comical if Sam hadn't looked so young and fragile.

The elder hunter paused for a moment, gazing down at his little brother, loathe to wake him but understanding the necessity nevertheless. He cleared his throat loudly. There was a brief flicker of shuttered eyelids before they floated to a close once more. Rolling his eyes, Dean leant down and tapped Sam lightly on the knee. "Sammy? C'mon, you can get your beauty sleep later, huh?"

Sam erupted from slumber with a startled gasp and a manic flailing of arms. _Jeez, he musta really been out_, Dean thought with a twinge of guilt, remembering how exhausted Sam had looked when freeing him from the chair.

"Dean?" Sam's eyes were swinging wildly from side to side as he sought out his big brother's reassuring form. He let out a relieved huff of breath as his gaze met Dean's. "You were...are you–?"

The elder hunter raised an eyebrow as he attempted to mentally translate his brother's incoherence, running the garbled speech through his internal Sam phrasebook. "I'm fine, Sam." Dean knew he'd guessed correctly when the flame of anxiety in Sam's eyes sputtered out. "C'mon. Let's get inside and get you checked out."

Sam didn't protest when Dean gently eased him up from the bench, slipping a shoulder underneath one of the kid's lolling arms and tensing as he braced his brother's substantial weight. The younger Winchester was almost out again by the time they'd reached their room, after having dragged himself all of ten steps.

"You are gettin' _soft_ Sammy," Dean muttered through the renewed ache in his head from having to prop up his brother with one arm, and carry both duffels with the other, all the while engaging in fumbling attempts to open their motel room with a rusty key that looked as if it had been cut sometime back in the Dark Ages.

Despite sagging limbs and a headache that blared through his skull with the persistent throb of a warning siren, Dean managed to gain entrance to the room, letting the door waft open while he surveyed the room with a practised eye.

It wasn't the worst he'd ever been in, but that single fact comprised the room's one positive attribute.

Stale bedspreads patterned with the sort of 1970's orange and purple psychedelia capable of blinding anyone that stared directly into its depths were half-heartedly draped across two craggy slabs of rock attempting to disguise themselves as mattresses. The spirals of lime green and deep blue in the wallpaper made Dean wonder if he'd unknowingly managed to dose himself with a hallucinogen somewhere between leaving the motel office and entering the room. The space seemed to swirl with a nauseating quality that may have had something to do with his headache, but which Dean felt couldn't have been helping his already delicate stomach.

There was a small kitchenette along the nearest wall, separated from the beds by a multi-coloured bead curtain that rippled slightly in the air conditioned breeze, providing a backdrop of plastic rustling that was just _bound_ to ensure a night of interminable insomnia for the rattled hunter. The carpet at least was unblemished by the kinds of dubious stains that the Winchesters frequently encountered in their usual hell-hole motels, but was made of a scratchy sisal material that Dean knew was going to feel like walking on a bed of nails if he trod across it without boots.

He hefted Sam through the doorway, laying him on the farthest bed with as much care as he could manage without losing his own flimsy balance. The younger man was all but oblivious to his big brother's struggle with gravity, glassy eyes staring blankly at the wall, a slight frown the only sign he was processing anything at all.

Dean took his time tending to his little brother, hissing and grumbling as he caught sight of the marbled bruises across midriff and back. He ought to have _killed_ that psycho sonofabitch, although the thought of Gordon enjoying some of the finest hospitality the penitentiary had to offer couldn't help but draw his lips into a satisfied smile.

But Sam was the one still dealing with the aftermath. Then again, Dean was more than thankful that his brother's limbs remained firmly attached to his torso, flesh still contained safely within skin. Gordon hadn't succeeded in his plan to kill Sam, and the elder hunter had to keep reminding himself of that every time an explosion flashed in front of his eyes and boomed disorientatingly in his ears.

Sam was beyond reaching by the time Dean had finished his ministrations, lost deep within sleep's blinding fog. The elder Winchester tugged off the kid's boots and lifted him under the bedcovers as best he could with limbs reduced to the strength of overcooked spaghetti, black spots clustering his vision and blending hypnotically with the wallpaper. He hauled the covers across his brother's slumbering form, nearly collapsing on top of him as the movement sent him lurching.

Finally satisfied that Sam had been well taken care of, the elder hunter sank back onto his own bed, wincing slightly as the bricked-in mattress sent an earthquake shuddering up the length of his spine. Exhaustion however, was attempting to convince him that this was the softest, most attractive bed in the world, and he ached to succumb to thoughtless oblivion. His whirling mind though, flightily leaping from subject to subject in a way that was only exacerbated by the distracting crinkling of the beaded curtain, would grant him no respite.

Being used as a helpless pawn in the attempted murder of the most important person in one's world was a powerful mental stimulant. Not to mention the fact that he wasn't especially keen to give sleep free rein to make him relive the moment that he'd truly believed his brother had died.

And to add flavour to the already delicious recipe, he'd found that unburdening himself to Sam about their father's warning had done absolutely nothing to lessen its panic-inducing, foreboding potency. If anything, his brother's justifiable anger had only made the words heavier, an albatross around his neck that had begun to choke the air from his lungs. And the fact that Sam was suffering because of them too...Part of Dean wished he'd never told him, though he knew he'd had no right to conceal them in the first place.

Dean let his head fall forward to rest in his hands. It was the one concession he allowed himself, his one gesture of acknowledgement. Sam could never know what this was doing to him.

He didn't care to quantify the length of time he sat like that, but the sky had begun to lighten outside the room's mottled brown curtains before he finally allowed his body to slump; sleep laying claim to the majority of his consciousness, but leaving his mind stumbling around in a vague awareness that was marred by roaring explosions and his own gagged screams.

o0o0o

Sam felt the ache even before his mind decided to alert him to the fact that wakefulness was beckoning; a deep, entrenched soreness that throbbed endlessly to the pace set by the baton of his heart's conductor. His consciousness carried out a brief survey, returning – cap in hand – to inform him that opening his eyes and returning to awareness probably wasn't going to improve matters. A return to hibernation was recommended, and Sam had almost authorised that very course of action when he heard a shuffling sound from somewhere in the unquantified space around him.

"D'n?" He slurred, thoughts suddenly leaping ahead before his sluggish mouth could catch up.

The surface below him was cratered with lumps and bumps, and a slight shift in body position created an internal image of lying on some kind of rocky outcrop. He felt himself frown as confusion set in. Had he and Dean gone camping?

There was a soft snort in response to his question. "Afternoon, Sammy."

A rustling sound made Sam turn his head slightly towards its source.

"Think you're gonna be disappointed, dude." Dean chuckled at his brother's continued grogginess.

With no small amount of effort, Sam dragged his eyelids upwards. And closed them again straight away. He was dreaming. He _had_ to be dreaming...in some sort of strange technicolour blur. "Ugh. Why?" He managed bemusedly as he tried to assimilate the gyrating oranges, purples, greens and blues that were still frustratingly present on repeated blinks. He'd have to congratulate his brother on another fine choice of motels.

"All that beauty sleep didn't work," Dean tossed back, sounding farther away. "Even after _twelve_ hours, dude."

Sam caught the concerned undertone in his big brother's words, and he began levering himself up, stifling a groan as his body levelled him a smug 'I told you so' in the form of a sharp, jabbing pain. "Twelve hours?" He croaked through a dry throat, blinking in surprise as a brimming glass of juice suddenly descended into his line of vision.

Accepting the glass and sipping it absently as he tried to comprehend his brother's words, he glanced up at a clearly hovering Dean. "You let me sleep for _twelve hours_?"

Panic and anger flared within him in a great roiling flame. Ava. Ava's fiance. All that blood...the engagement ring. _All_ of that, and his brother had left him to sleep for half a friggin' day? Dean had left him imprisoned in sleep's clutches while Ava was god only knew where...He could almost feel their chance at finding her, of catching the trail of whatever demon had taken her slipping from his grasping fingers. The sensation sent his heart fluttering, blowing any calmness from his mind as anxiety took hold.

After everything that had happened, Dean still didn't understand how important this was. After telling Sam he'd stick with him, that he'd help him explore his destiny, he'd gone and demonstrated that his primary drive was, and always would be, to prevent it from happening. His big brother's commitment to the cause was questionable at best, and Sam suspected that Dean was only a few steps away from removing him by force.

But dammit, Sam _needed_ to do this! How many times, and from how many different sources was he supposed to hear that he'd turn evil and start killing everyone before Dean would accept that he had to try and figure out what was going to happen? How was he supposed to prevent it from happening if he didn't know what _it_ was, and how _it_ was going to come about in the first place?

Finding Ava's fiance lying in a mire of blood had only confirmed every fear he'd ever had about what his destiny meant for him...and the person closest to him. Brady had been Ava's chosen _life partner_; it didn't take a genius to work out that Dean would be the first to go if Yellow-Eyes decided that Sam's presence was required. How was he supposed to keep his brother safe from that if Dean kept trying to shelter him? If the demon could get to them at any place, or any time, he had no chance of protecting his big brother. Unless he could stop it.

They needed to find out what had happened to Ava.

Dean drew his brows together, surprise colouring his cheeks at the vehemence of his little brother's accusatory response. "Sam, you got the stuffin' beaten outta you by Gordon and you nearly freakin' _died_ in two grenade explosions. You needed to sleep."

The younger Winchester closed his eyes, needing to clear his mental framework of an anger that might lead to words he'd regret. Sighing out a breath, he chanted internally: _He means well. Dean means well_. Aloud he granted his mouth permission to level a reasonable amount of irritation, one that wouldn't lead to his big brother's head being bitten off for merely trying to look after him. "Fine. But not for twelve hours, okay? Not while we have work to do."

Besides, his brother hadn't exactly come out of the whole experience unscathed. Even the _thought_ of Gordon having had Dean in his clutches for as long as he had was making Sam's muscles tense with the desire to go another round with the demented hunter. And then there was the fact that his big brother was most likely fighting off the lingering effects of the concussion he'd surely acquired after getting closely acquainted with the butt of Walker's gun.

Scribbling a mental note to check Dean's head later, Sam began pushing back his bedcovers.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Dean laid a restraining hand on Sam's shoulder, neatly using his height advantage to keep Sam seated. "Wait a second. It took a good _hour _last night to patch you up. How you feelin'?"

Impatiently shoving aside his brother's hand and levering himself upwards, Sam forced out a frustrated breath. "I'm fine, Dean. We don't have time to sit around. Ava's out there somewhere. We've got to find her, man." There was a shakiness in his voice that he wasn't bothering to hide. He was spooked, and it was better that Dean knew it.

The elder hunter reluctantly stood aside to let Sam pass, eyes flicking from root to tip as the younger man passed; assessing. Sam rolled his eyes inwardly. Sneaking out on Dean had only resulted in his brother engaging in ever more overt and unabashed scrutiny. It would have warmed him if he'd been anywhere in the region of acceptable coddling territory, but he needed his big brother to back off so that he could figure out what he needed to do.

"I _said_ I'm fine, Dean." He snapped, wincing as he padded barefoot across the scratchy flooring towards the bathroom, the sisal pricking his soles like tiny needles. Had Dean been utterly blind when he'd chosen this place?

"That's a loada bull and you know it." Dean stopped him in his tracks, the directness in the older man's tone shackling his limbs and holding him immobile. "We need to talk about what happened last night."

Sam whirled to face his brother, who was eyeing him warily from across the room. Dean's fists were curled slightly; not clenched tightly enough to suggest that an argument was imminent, but enough to let the younger Winchester know that his big brother was far from relaxed. What the hell was Dean's problem? It wasn't like _he'd_ just found out he might become so dangerous that he'd need to be put down like a dog – by his own _family_ no less!

"You wanting to talk, Dean? That's a first," Sam retorted with a carefully arched eyebrow. Dean, whose mind was such a locked vault that he hadn't even bothered to share their father's last words until he hadn't been able to keep them secret any longer. All the while Sam had agonised about what his psychic experiences meant...his big brother had known about the danger he posed and had kept it from him.

Had kept it from him at their _father's_ behest. Even from beyond the grave, John Winchester seemed able to have Dean dancing to his tune like the friggin' Pied Piper.

The elder Winchester ignored the jibe, stepping forward with his arms raised out to the side; placatory. "Look, Sam...What we found at Ava's..."

"What? You want to talk about the fact that it's _my_ fault? I'm the one who told her to go _home_, Dean! Or do you want to talk about how you might have to kill me, huh? It seems pretty friggin' obvious that Yellow-Eyes is gonna come for me some day," Sam raised his eyes heavenward, flapping his arms like a bird attempting first flight.

Dean dropped his shoulders, features turning stricken at the younger man's outburst. "Sam–."

The sound of his brother's anguish rebounded off Sam's agitation like a rubber ball. "No, Dean. We're gonna go, and we're gonna figure out what happened to Ava, and then we're gonna find her. There's nothing else to talk about."

Sam turned his back on Dean's obvious distress, stomping into the bathroom and barely stopping short of slamming the door in self-righteous pique. He was faintly surprised at their role reversal. Normally _he_ was the one that wanted to pick over the carcass of his feelings for leftover meat while Dean had always lived by the assumption that not talking about something meant that it had ceased to exist.

Their father's warning being a case in point.

But Sam's lingering resentment over what his big brother had kept from him was having the unforeseen effect of making him want to scrunch his emotions into a tight little ball and fling them deep into his mind's repository. The notion of what he might become...what Gordon Walker had told his big brother...it was too much. It was more than he was capable of comprehending.

But what he _could_ do, was find Ava.

By the time Sam had finished showering, the phonebooth-sized bathroom had turned into a sauna, thick with a swirling steam that dried out the young hunter's throat. The scalding water had soothed aching muscles and bruises, slowly ironing out the grooves of pain and exhaustion that were scrawled like graffiti across his body. Mechanically he'd washed his hair, the robotic movements a pleasantly mindless alternative to ruminating about his apocalyptic future.

The fuzzy circle that he'd rubbed out on the fogged up mirror reflected back to him a visage that, if he'd encountered it under other circumstances, he would have felt compelled to salt and burn – pale skin cracked with charred-looking scabs and a colour palette of bruises, red-rimmed eyes set deep into cavernous hollows, brow etched into a scowl.

No wonder Dean had been looking at Sam as if he'd expected his little brother to keel over at a moment's notice.

The young hunter shook his head slightly, realising belatedly that the dizziness he'd been feeling since awakening was not going to be helped by having the world whip backwards and forwards before his eyes. Resting his uninjured hand on the rim of the sink, he steadied himself. He had to keep it together. Dean would find any excuse to bench Sam on this one if the younger man allowed the slightest weakness to become expressed.

A splash of cold water to his face was his final preparation before leaving the safe haven of the bathroom and returning to his big brother.

Dean was sitting with a newspaper and a mug of coffee at a rickety table in one garish corner, the lopsided legs causing the dilapidated wooden surface to tip in lurching see-saw movements at the tiniest shift in applied weight. The slight pooling of coffee beneath the mug suggested that the elder Winchester had forgotten the unsteadiness of his position more than once. He glanced up as Sam exited the bathroom, a slow, nonchalant gesture; as if he hadn't been been watching the door with the kind of rapt attention he usually only devoted to servicing his precious car.

"Feelin' better?" The older man asked with a similarly forced casualness that only a blind Sam wouldn't have been able to see right through. The realisation that Dean might actually be frightened of him knifed through his gut. After all the things that Gordon had been filling his brother's head with...what if he _believed_ them?

No. Dean would never believe that about him. He just wouldn't.

"Yeah." He huffed out a breath, tried a smile. Failed miserably.

Dean didn't comment, but Sam knew his brother's beady eye had caught every twitch of the abandoned attempt. The elder Winchester raised his coffee mug, seemingly oblivious when several large drips splattered messily onto his newspaper, and drained it in one gulp. "Okay then," He gestured to the paper with the empty mug. "Looks like the cops followed our anonymous tip. They found Brady."

"And Ava?" Sam's gaze zoomed in on the article his brother had been perusing and began cataloguing every word.

"Reported missing," Dean answered shortly as he set his mug down, clearly edging carefully around the subject after his little brother's earlier rant. He gathered up the local paper and handed it to Sam. "Her family have made an appeal. Figured you'd want to go talk to 'em."

Sam smoothed out the article and began scrutinising it more carefully. "It says here they live in Chicago, Dean. That's like a three hour drive. It'll take us too long tonight, I think we should wait until tomorrow"

Dean nodded slowly, as if every movement was being carefully and rigorously risk-assessed. When had his big brother started acting so tentatively around him? Oh, right. After Sam had taken off on him without a word.

He quashed the little bubble of guilt that had risen at the thought. He couldn't let that get in the way of what he needed to do.

"One of her friends is quoted here." He muttered, mouth acting on autopilot as his mind reviewed the options. "Marie Vaughn. Why don't we start with her?" Appraisal completed, Sam's mind was sheepishly informing him that the contribution of such a course of action would be negligible at best. But he was at a loss as to what they should _really_ be doing. He just knew that they had to do _something_.

Dean sighed, but the meaning of the signal was unclear. The way his big brother had been acting in recent times, it could have been anything from exasperation, to reluctant acceptance, to plain fatigue. Dean would voice no such expression however, leaving Sam to read his brother's behaviour with the same confidence he'd have had with a set of tarot cards – despite his supposed psychic prowess. Besides, if he'd needed a baseline measure for his ability to analyse the inner workings of Dean's mind, then the 'big secret' had more than sufficed.

Clearly he and Dean hadn't been as close as he'd thought.

"All right," Dean agreed, voice dropping several octaves and providing the younger Winchester with further evidence that his big brother was less than enthusiastic about their continued presence in Peoria.

"Then let's go," Sam crossed his arms and stared pointedly at his still seated brother.

"When was the last time you ate, Sam?" Dean refused to budge, leaning back in his chair and locking his gaze with Sam's in a manner that the younger Winchester knew would be impossible to shake unless he gave in.

"I'll get something on the way," Sam dodged, eyes skirting past Dean's and beginning to dubiously investigate the tawdry wallpaper. Anything to avoid being suckered by his brother's stare.

"No, you'll get something _now_," Dean returned calmly, sweeping an arm towards the kitchenette where several brown wrapped packages were sitting ostentatiously on the surface. The grease marks peppering the crumpled paper suggested the presence of something calorie-laden and artery-clogging, and Sam felt his stomach churn nauseatingly at the thought. But Dean would be insufferable if he didn't eat something.

Sam gritted his teeth. "Fine."

Dean's eyes flashed with a glimmer that looked like triumph, but a second later Sam knew he'd read concern there instead. He knew he had to stop giving his big brother a hard time, but he still allowed himself to stomp sulkily over to the kitchenette – a feat rendered almost redundant by the fact that his stocking-covered soles ended up dancing across the sisal carpet as if it was a bed of hot coals.

He was reaching for the first bag when Dean's voice stayed his hand once more. "Not _those_, Sammy. Those are _mine_. Your rabbit food's in the refrigerator."

Dean.

A chuckle escaped before Sam could censor it, neatly stemming the flow of his rising irritation.

Maybe they'd be okay after all.

o0o0o

Sam's mood hadn't improved. In fact – and after many years of bearing the brunt of both tantrums and tears, Dean considered himself an expert – it had gotten steadily worse over the course of the afternoon. The elder Winchester found himself reminded of one of those apocalyptic stock market graphs; the ones with big red lines plummeting towards zero. For Sam, markets were crashing left, right and centre.

Now on their way back to their groovy motel room after several hours of fruitless interviews, Sam was twisted tensely into a pretzel in the passenger seat, staring out the windshield with both brow and jaw clenched so tight that he looked constipated. Dean could only imagine what the kid was seeing, but it had to be something that was irritating the hell out of him. Either that or he really_ was_ having digestive problems.

Dean sighed and flicked on the radio, the silence grating on him, shredding his composure. Boston's _More than a Feeling _started low on the speakers, growing louder as the young hunter felt some of the tension begin to ease from his tightly wired frame. The afternoon hadn't exactly been fun for him either, not least because Sam had apparently decided that his big brother provided the perfect verbal punching bag for belting out all of his frustrations.

And Dean was becoming increasingly fed up. Sam's propensity to snap and gnash his teeth had been rising exponentially with each dead end they'd hit, and his big brother had run out of reassuring platitudes after the first billion. He wasn't proud of it, his failure to keep Sam buoyed in the face of all the evil that seemed to have a personal vendetta against them, but he could feel himself teetering on the brink of losing control.

And Sam's whining – understandable though it was – had been pecking busily away at him for hours now, a rapping sound that seemed to vibrate through him until it was ringing in his ears. Even now that his brother was silent, the noise buzzed away unceasingly in his head like a case of tinnitus.

Marie Vaughn, a pixie-like, dark haired girl who – despite being clearly upset by her friend's disappearance – had flirted shamelessly with Dean's Agent Richards while Sam's sour-faced Agent Jagger had watched on in stony silence, had told them little of any use (besides her phone number, which was now tucked safely into the breast pocket of Dean's suit). No, she hadn't heard from Ava. No, Ava hadn't mentioned that anything weird was going on. Brady had been looking for her a couple of days ago, but then he'd been killed and Ava had still been missing.

What she _had_ been able to give them however, had been a list of Ava's closest friends, and the name of the law firm where the missing woman had worked as a secretary. With a depressingly similar lack of success, they'd visited each person on the list. With each denial they received, Sam had begun to withdraw all the more, participating less and less in the interviews and leaving Dean to deal with the sobs and tears of devastated friends – something that had left him feeling as unsettled and nervous as a rookie on the first day of a new job.

All had indicated that the local police had been looking at Ava as being the potential murderer, given that her ring had been left at the scene; a fact that might impact on their ability to investigate her disappearance more thoroughly. Police were an unwanted complication.

Ava's boss had been an interesting character. Useless, but interesting.

Harvey Beaumont had been sitting at a computer behind a chaotically cluttered desk when they'd entered the office, hands hooked behind his neck as he'd swung from side to side in his chair. As he'd risen to greet the brothers, Dean had almost choked when he'd seen the brightly coloured Hawaiian shorts the desktop had been concealing.

Greying hair streaked with white blonde highlights had sat at shoulder length against a light blue t-shirt, and Dean had almost felt his little brother's disapproval. A lawyer dressed as if he'd just been about to head to the beach? Clearly unacceptable to his formerly Pre-Law brother.

Beaumont's handshake had been so laid back it had been like grasping a dead fish, and he'd offered them both a beer before showing them to Ava's desk. The girl's workspace hadn't been much tidier than that of her boss, and Dean found himself wondering what the hell two messy, flaky types were doing working in such a confined space. How they'd gotten any work done was beyond him.

As the brothers had delved through piles of scribbled notes and diaries, Beaumont had regaled them with stories of his greatest legal victories – though they'd specifically asked him about Ava, and _only_ Ava – and had repeatedly knocked over several stacks of papers that Sam had laid aside to look through in more detail, a fact that had done _nothing_ to improve the kid's state of mind.

Once his fit of narcissistic self-promotion had passed, Beaumont eventually revealed that Ava had taken an abrupt leave of absence from work – which corresponded with her trip to Lafayette – but that beforehand he'd noticed her becoming increasingly more drawn and fatigued. From what Sam had told him before, Dean figured that her nightmares must have been taking their toll.

The search of Ava's desk hadn't revealed any magical clues as to her potential whereabouts, and Dean was becoming more and more convinced that the demon that had killed her fiance had taken her along with it. In which case, their chances of finding her were almost non-existent. He wasn't mentioning that small fact to Sam, however. One didn't go waving fresh meat in front of a lion unless one wanted to lose an arm – or worse.

Extricating themselves from Harvey Beaumont had been like getting stuck in a rose bush; every time they thought they'd managed, the man would snag them and reel them back in. But eventually they had escaped, and an exhausted Dean had insisted that they return to the motel to regroup. He hadn't had the benefit of twelve hours' sleep after all, or even four hours' sleep. Sam had reluctantly and snappily agreed, muttering something under his breath about _Dean_ having scuppered their chances of finding anything by letting him sleep so long.

And so Dean was fed up. He could see with a despairing finality that their search for Ava was leading nowhere, and the thought of having to broach the subject with Sam...He'd have happily gone up against ten rabid vampires rather than suggest that they abandon the quest.

Then there was the newspaper article he'd stumbled across that morning, the one he hadn't yet brought up with his little brother. The one that might _actually_ represent a real case, where they might _actually_ be able to make some kind of difference. To save lives rather than chase after a woman they had no hope of finding.

Yeah. That was going to be a popular one.

Still, Dean had found that he'd been less and less able to leave it alone as the day had dragged on. His mind had continued to return to the same spot, like a lost traveller wandering in circles. He'd passed the tree marked 'investigate' more times than he could count; all roads seemed to lead there no matter what route he chose.

He cleared his throat, watching out of the corner of his eye as Sam stirred and glanced towards him. "Sam..." He began through a voice as creaky as a rusty hinge.

"Yeah, Dean?" The response was accompanied by a raised eyebrow and a tone that exuded apathy like the stench of a rotten egg.

"I've been thinkin'...uh, I didn't want to bring it up earlier...but I think I found us a case."

"A case?" Sam blinked in confusion. "We already have a case, Dean."

"Yeah, but Sam there was a report in the local paper this mornin'. Buncha people have died from some kinda brain disease over the past coupla days–."

"So? It happens, Dean. It's sad, but it's hardly our kind of problem." Sam waved a dismissive hand, already returning his gaze to the road in front.

"Sam, the youngest person was twenty-five. Oldest was forty-four. That sound normal to you?"

"Dean...There are lots of neurological problems out there," Sam retorted in patronising smugness. The encyclopedia of Sam at work once more.

"Well, thank you very much _Doctor _Winchester," Dean tossed back sarcastically as he turned the Impala into the motel parking lot. "But I think I'll skip the lecture. Even the doctors over at the hospital can't explain what's been happenin' Sam. I'm not _stupid_!"

Sam didn't disagree, but the elder hunter was far from reassured by the daggers his brother was hurling at him from ominously narrowed eyes. "Okay. So it sounds a little odd. But Dean, we have to focus on Ava right now." There was a precision to the younger man's words that immediately made Dean's hackles rise in instinctive readiness.

The elder Winchester bit his lip as he edged the Impala into the parking space outside their motel room and propelled himself out of his seat, needing to escape the confined interior before he countered his brother's argument; the possibility that things were going to get messy occupying prime real estate at forefront of his mind.

He registered Sam's heavy footsteps behind him as he marched briskly to their room, gritting his teeth in frustration as the door took several long, awkward moments to unlock. When finally the stiff lock clicked, Dean threw the door open, not caring that it had rebounded off the psychedelic wall in his enthusiasm. He spun to face his brother several steps in, aware from Sam's stance that the kid had been readying himself for battle.

"Sam...Look, man, I think you need to prepare yourself for the fact that we might not find her," He began, watching with trepidation as the planes of his brother's face tightened.

The younger man took a deep breath and nodded, but in a way that filled Dean with dread. The gesture hadn't been one of acquiescence, it had seemed more like the acknowledgement of a hypothesis confirmed, and Dean frowned as he wondered just what theory Sam had been gathering evidence to support.

"I knew it," Sam bit out shortly, mouth pursing as his eyes flitted around the room, landing anywhere but on Dean.

"You knew _what_, Sam?" Dean took a step forward, twisting his neck as he tried to capture his brother's gaze. This wasn't sounding good.

"After all you said about sticking by me...you're always going to try and stop me from doing this aren't you? I thought we'd been over this!" When Sam eventually met his gaze, Dean instantly wished that he hadn't been so conscientious in seeking it out.

"Sam, what I'm always gonna try and do is _look out_ for you!" Dean could feel his emotions bouncing around within him like atoms in a chemical reaction, colliding and reforming into volatile affective compounds that were becoming increasingly more difficult to handle. "I don't go in for all this 'destiny' crap. But that has nothin' to do with the fact that Ava is _gone_, and other people are dyin'. Here. Now. And that is a situation that we _can_ do somethin' about."

To say that Sam had been looking unconvinced would have been stating it mildly. "Yeah, so it has absolutely nothing to do with you deciding what's best for everyone else, as usual. You _and_ Dad."

Dean frowned as the accusation buried itself to the hilt in his heart, setting off ever more chain reactions through his mind. "What's_ Dad _got to do with this?"

Their father had friggin' everything to do with it, but Dean suspected that Sam was about to unearth a whole new ingenious way of involving the Winchester patriarch.

"Only that the two of you seem to think that you have final say over my life, Dean! Dad tells you that you might have to kill me, and instead of actually sharing this with me you decide that your promise to _him_ is more important. You know what? Some things never change!" Sam's body had become animated in his anger, limbs waving wildly and emphatically.

Dean took an involuntary step back, eyes falling to the floor as he grappled with his brother's words. Was Sam really saying...was he _really_ dragging this dusty old resentment out of their dark family attic? Did Sam really think that their father was more important to Dean than their brotherhood?

"Sam–," Dean swore he could feel his voice cracking like a smashed plate as he met Sam's cold glare with his own disbelieving entreaty.

"Go screw yourself, Dean!" The younger man snarled, whirling dramatically to stalk towards the still open door.

Sam's furiously hurled insult was enough to shake Dean loose from his own self-pity, and he felt his own anger finally spark. Who the hell was Sam to friggin' judge? Sam, who'd run off like a sulky teenager instead of actually talking things through like an adult. "Where you goin', Sam?"

"To get some fresh air." The younger Winchester threw back without stopping.

"Well at least we've made progress," Dean spat before he could stop himself. Angry as he felt, this was not a can of worms he'd intended to go anywhere near. But the words were out there now, and their heavily laden sarcasm had finally been enough to stall Sam in the doorway.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Sam turned slowly, his response low, dangerous. Flammable.

"I mean you're actually _tellin'_ me this time." Dean smirked mirthlessly, his mouth acting out a role that his smouldering eyes weren't prepared to support. He'd not only broken past his self-imposed boundary, he'd utterly obliterated it, and found himself feeling almost exhilarated by the surge of adrenaline that followed.

"Oh, so we're back to this again, huh? You know what? If there's something you want to say Dean, go right ahead." Sam stepped back into the room, arms held cockily out to the side as if he were a prize boxer being welcomed to the ring by thousands of screaming fans. Well, Dean was more than willing to become the challenger. The arrogance in his brother's stance was setting off all manner of alarm bells in his head, all kinds of warnings that the rational part of his beleaguered mind was urging him to heed. But Dean was long past the point of listening to it.

"Fine," He accepted Sam's thrown gauntlet with bared teeth, bitterness souring his tone. "I practically _begged_ you to give me time to think things through. You agreed and then snuck out anyway. No goodbye, no explanation. For all I knew, somethin' freakin' _took_ you!" His voice wobbled humiliatingly without warning as hurt rose and hosed down the flame of his anger.

To Dean's surprise, Sam looked suddenly abashed, his gaze plummeting to the floor as his brow twitched into a deep furrow. For a brief moment the elder Winchester almost took a conciliatory step forward, his little brother's posture signalling imminent waterworks, but then Sam's eyes snapped upwards to meet his and Dean found himself almost scalded by the heat that frothed in their depths.

"Okay, so I should've left a note. I'm sorry. But I needed answers, and you were going to try and stop me. Just like you are now!"

The apology had sounded about as sincere as Sam's joke had back in the Impala after they'd left Gordon in the hands of the Lafayette police, and though Dean knew what he'd witnessed just moments earlier, he couldn't help feeling wounded by yet another of his brother's self-righteous justifications. He rolled his eyes, smirking internally in hollow triumph as Sam pursed his lips in response. "That's a whole bucket-loada crap, Sam! I asked for time to think. I didn't ask you stop lookin' for answers."

Sam shook his head, lips now curling into a sneer as he regarded his brother with calculated calm. "Yeah, Dean. 'Cause you have such a great track record for letting me get answers."

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Dean felt himself go hot, fire burning his cheeks and searing a flaming path down through his body. He knew where this was going, and he felt his muscles ripple with tension beneath his skin in readiness as he prepared to receive the blow.

"Uh, well...there's the fact that you neglected to mention that Dad told you I might go psycho one day and, oh yeah, that you'd have to _end_ me!"

The reminder of their father's ominous words was like a hot poker to Dean's core, Sam's irreverent delivery holding it there until it blistered and charred his flagging heart, crumbling it to pieces in his chest. All those months of soul-destroying darkness, of dread and dismay and panic and guilt and worry...all of it reduced to one flippant statement. As if all the agonising and bitter agony had been meaningless. As if it hadn't eaten him up from the inside. As if he hadn't been slowly dying from its cancerous invasion.

How Sam could think that it had been about their father, and what he'd wanted...? Dean had borne the darkness so that his brother hadn't needed to. What good would telling him have done? What good _had_ it done? Why did Sam need to know about something that was never friggin' going to happen?

"Right," Dean swore he could almost taste the poisonous sarcasm that infused his words, an acidic burn that began building portentously at the back of his throat before it suddenly tipped forth from his mouth in a burbling rush.

"And just when exactly was I supposed to tell you, huh? When we were watchin' his body go up in flames? Or how 'bout when you were actin' like his biggest fan? Or maybe the right time to tell you would've been after you told me that you didn't want to lose me too, huh?"

Sam recoiled as if his brother's words had hit him with the force of a slap, holding up his hands in silent protest, but still Dean continued undeterred. The deluge of words and emotions drenched him like a flash flood.

"Then there was the whole gettin' arrested deal, all the crap with Andy, the Crossroads Demon...take your pick! Or maybe I shoulda told you when you thought you were gonna wig out from the Croatoan virus? 'Yeah, Sam, actually you dyin' works out real nice for me, 'cause now I don't have to kill you myself', huh?"

The younger man was staring at him, wide-eyed and open-mouthed like a startled possum. He looked like he didn't know whether to be affronted or devastated. "Dean..." He began, mouth silently forming around words he didn't seem to be able to articulate.

And in that moment, at Sam's obvious distress, Dean felt the heat of his anger cool and condense into a thick remorse that filled him to the brim. He took a deep steadying breath, allowing it to rush back out again in an enormous sigh. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you. And you got a right to be pissed at me, but..." _I didn't wanna break your faith in Dad after he was gone...I couldn't bear the thought that somethin' bad might happen to you...I'm so friggin' mad at Dad for leavin' me with this...I didn't wanna put this on your shoulders too..._

"But, what?" Sam had materialised before him as if by magic, inches from the tip of his nose. Dean almost took a step back in surprise, but forced himself to hold his ground.

He _couldn't_ let Sam know all the crap that was swirling beneath the surface. Sam needed him to be _strong_ dammit! This act needed to be the performance of his life. "What Dad said, it's never gonna happen, and I knew this was how you'd react."

Sam paused for a beat, eyes narrowing as he gave Dean's features a thorough examination, suspicion gleaming from under hooded lids. Dean knew his brother hadn't believed his hasty cover up, but Sam had apparently chosen not to call him on it. "You still should've told me."

Not wishing to question this stroke of luck, Dean restricted himself to a quick nod and a softly murmured: "I know."

Eyes lowered once more, Dean couldn't suppress his startled twitch as a large paw landed on his shoulder. Sam was staring intensely down at him. Sincerely, Dean realised. "But I guess I get why you didn't. Dean, I just...I _need _to do this. And I _need_ you with me. Please."

And...yeah. As expected, his brother's puppy-dog laser eyes began boring into him, locking him into place. Of all the underhanded...Sam _knew_ he couldn't resist those. _Dammit!_

He sighed once more, defeat mingling with unease to weave a blanket of anxiety around his body, tightening nauseatingly as worry for his brother began mixing with guilty concern for the Peoria victims he was abandoning. "All right. We'll keep lookin'."

"Thanks, Dean."

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts!_


	2. All in the Mind

Hi everyone! Thanks to all who reviewed, favourited and alerted – it really means a lot! :)

Huge thanks also goes to Sharlot for beta reading this chapter – I can't tell you enough how much I appreciate all your time, effort and encouragement!

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 2 – All in the Mind**

Dean Winchester watched from a distance that felt more than just physical. He viewed the scene as if through a lens, one that appeared to be lurching in and out of focus with an unpredictable rapidity, making him feel as if he was being nudged ever further from reality. One second he was gazing at the plastic-looking gash on the neck of Ava's waxwork fiancé with noxious clarity, and the next the entire room seemed to pitch sideways into a disorientating blurriness. He stood uselessly to the side, passively observing the emotions that churned around his brother's face like a washing machine on spin cycle, impotently watching as Sam became more and more distressed at the dearth of answers the oblivious pathologist had thus far provided to _Agent Jagger's_ terse questions. Sam's pallor had been steadily deepening from marbled, pink patches of frustration to something in the region of _he's-gonna-blow _red within mere minutes of having entered the morgue. But then again, the younger man had been rattling like an over-boiling pot since he'd roused from sleep that morning.

They'd woken very early, the sporadic dialogue between them grumpy and stilted – their words playing out on autocue and vocalised with a nervous concentration - despite their _kind-of_ truce the previous night.

Breakfast had become an obligatory chore, a depressing indictment of his life that Dean had never thought possible. His food had felt bland and rubbery in his mouth, slithering down his gullet as if he was a bird gulping down a fish; apathetic tastebuds turning up their noses and disinterestedly waving the food away. If Sam's amalgamated expression of sour disgust had been anything to go by, the kid's experience hadn't been much better.

Dean might have made it through the meal on autopilot, might have been able to block out the small, acidic revolt that had started brewing nauseatingly in the pit of his stomach as he'd mechanically raised fork to mouth. But when he'd set the local paper down onto the wobbly table surface, his eye had been netted and drawn in by the hollering, ten-inch tall headline that had been as aversive to his senses as it had been impossible to ignore. His beloved coffee had burned with an acrid fire at the back of his throat as he'd compulsively scoured the page.

Seventeen-year old Hailey Meier, a shop assistant at her parents' grocery store on the west side of the city: the latest person to be diagnosed with the mystery brain disease that had been steadily notching up victims over the past few days. Seventeen. A freakin' _teenager_. A young girl who was now apparently incapable of remembering her own _parents_.

Forcefully drawing his eyes from the headline, Dean had scanned the report. It had been the previous day when police had been called to the store, arriving at a scene they had apparently not known how to deal with: a dishevelled, disorientated young girl blindly waving her father's shotgun at anyone who dared to approach. One knee-jerk shot had taken down some of the ceiling tiles. Another had shattered a display of wine bottles. By pure chance, it seemed, neither patron nor parent had been hurt.

The article had been bursting with grandiose, histrionic extremes of language that had left the elder hunter feeling faintly sick. But when he'd peeled away the layers of action movie play-by-plays, when he'd read the raw words of the couple who had spoken so candidly of how they were losing their daughter, he'd felt like an utter failure. He'd felt like he'd been abandoning them.

But how was he supposed to choose between strangers and his own family?

So he'd hidden the report from Sam, and his own guilty regret. What he'd _wanted _to do was throw a tantrum of epic magnitude, to start throwing furniture, crockery...punches. But he'd felt Sam's hand tugging at the leash around his neck, yanking him away from the tantalising scent of the case with a firm _No_ and an indulgent _Good Boy._

Besides..._besides_.

He'd promised his little brother that Ava would be the focus of his attention. Sam needed him. Actually _wanted_ his big brother's help instead of striking out on his own again. And Dean knew that his brother felt responsible for what had happened to the missing woman who had played her part in saving them both from Gordon Walker. And the elder Winchester was more than a little concerned that Sam would find a way to twist and tweak the situation until he'd managed to talk himself into the notion that Brady's attack was a surefire indication that Ava had turned evil.

A fact which hadn't been helped by the newspaper's _other_ gem of an article; hidden away on the third page this time, but with no less clout in its almost gleeful caption.

Dean had known that it would only have been a matter of time before the local paper would realise its own capacity for milking a story to sensational proportions, but his heart had sank through the motel room floorboards when he'd read the piece that had begun describing Ava as a homicidal lunatic who'd flipped out and butchered her own fiancé. That report Dean had _tried_ to keep hidden, but Sam had snatched the paper from his grasp before he'd been able to conceal it. He could still remember the way the kid's face had scrunched and folded darkly in on itself, and his own frustration at his inability to do anything to smooth it out again.

Watching his brother now, the elder Winchester suspected that the theatrical tone of the article had acted as the catalyst for Sam's sudden insistence that they visit the local morgue that morning to view Brady's corpse. The unexpected demand had taken the elder hunter by surprise, but he'd dubiously agreed, feeling the thin ice beneath his feet begin to creak ominously. He hadn't needed

a further black mark to his name, a further 'result' that would continue to undermine Sam's faith in him.

Nevertheless, Dean had wondered at the wisdom of the action, and his lack of protest was looking increasingly more like an oversight as the morning wore on.

"It appears that he was asleep when the attack took place," The somewhat unnervingly named Dr. De'Ath was droning on in the type of soporific, scholarly grumble that transported Dean right back to school days spent dozing surreptitiously at the back of the classroom. But then again, the elder Winchester supposed, at least the lanky, shabby looking pathologist didn't have to worry about sending his charges to sleep in the morgue.

"As I told your colleagues, Agent Jagger, there really is nothing to rule out a person of small stature having carried out an attack of this nature."

Sam jutted out his jaw in response, biting his lip as he stewed in silence for several beats; warning signs so classic they'd been in the kid's operator manual from time immemorial. Dean waited, tensing indecisively as he tried frantically to gauge if his brother's core reactor was about to go into nuclear meltdown, and whether he'd need to execute a mass exodus from the building. There was an ominous vibration as the younger Winchester's eyes narrowed, a palpable build-up of pressure as his fists clenched. Dean braced himself, fearing that he was too late, more than tempted to shield his face with his hands.

But there was nothing.

"So, Doctor, what you're saying is, that...in your opinion, Ms. Wilson could have murdered her fiance?"

Dean wiped sweat from an imaginary brow. Crisis averted.

De'Ath's raised eyebrows were like scrawled pen-lines on his bulging forehead, two minuscule doodles that were almost as barren as the ones on his balding crown – making him look like the end result of a children's Easter egg painting session. The brows seemed to wriggle mesmerisingly as he spoke, and Dean found himself having to work hard to focus on the man's words.

"That would be correct. The knife that was discovered in the living room was the one that delivered the fatal wound to the throat, here," De'Ath drew his finger across the gash in a slitting motion – replete with sound effects - with an enthusiasm that made Dean wince. "And I understand that her prints were the only ones found on it."

Sam's eyes seemed to glow suddenly with an unnatural, radioactive intensity as he took a menacing step towards the placid pathologist, seeming to grow taller in the cold space as he loomed threateningly. De'Ath was considerably slower on the uptake than Dean, who instantly stepped forward to lay a restraining hand on his brother's shoulder. Sam's muscles had turned to stone beneath his fingers, and the elder Winchester found himself almost straining from the effort of holding the kid back. From _what_, he wasn't quite sure, but neither did he want to find out.

De'Ath's comprehension reached cruising altitude some seconds later, bewildered eyes finally narrowing at Sam's dangerous aura, scribbled eyebrows descending into a deep V on his forehead. "Is there a problem, Agent Jagger? Agent Richards?"

Dean blinked, faintly impressed. The man had sounded almost awake.

The elder Winchester cleared his throat authoritatively, shooting his brother a wary glance. Sam's tight frame hadn't shifted by a millimetre, and Dean's internal threat sensors had begun screaming for an immediate evacuation. "No. No problem, Doctor. Thanks for your time."

He gave Sam an insistent tug, throwing the pressure of his full weight behind the manoeuvre until he saw the tiniest twitch in the kid's rigid shoulders. Sam gave a stiff, wordless nod before sharply dislodging his brother's hand and bolting for the door; clipped footsteps echoing sharply against the tiled floor and walls.

Dean whirled to stare after his brother in baffled concern, but the gently flapping door was the only sign of Sam's hasty passage.

"Is he all right?" De'Ath's voice had him spinning once more, and Dean had the fleeting and unwanted image of himself pirouetting like a ballerina before his eyes came to rest on the pathologist's dubious expression.

_Nice job, Sammy. Way to draw attention, dude._

"Yeah," Dean blurted in a tone pitched at stratospheric level. Raised eyebrows had him scrabbling for a foothold on the slippery slope he was now whizzing down at full speed. He tittered nervously as the inked brows twisted further into a suspicious frown. "Breakfast burritto," He attempted a smirk, winced when it fell flat. "Weak stomach. Kid never learns."

Sam was leaning against the Impala when Dean finally escaped the labyrinthine morgue, elbows resting against the roof, fists clasped together. Approaching from behind, the elder hunter thought his brother looked like mourner at prayer, head bowed slightly as he stared into nothingness. Either that, or the kid was _really_ interested in the ladies clothes store across the street.

"Got somethin' you wanna share, Sammy?" Dean gave his brother a deliberately cheerful nudge on the shoulder as he drew up beside him.

The younger man visibly startled at both noise and contact, jerking his head towards Dean as if he'd just returned from a whistle-stop tour of a land very, very far away. "Huh?"

Gritting his teeth, Dean kept on with his pretence of joviality. Nodding to the clothes store directly in front of them, he continued: "Always knew you were a girl at heart, Sam. Guess this is _right_ up your street!"

Easily managing to provoke the expression of irritated disbelief he'd been aiming for, Dean smirked internally, hiked shoulders dropping by several degrees as he allowed himself to relax slightly; the heightened danger of the past few moments seeming to dissipate from the air between them. Sam's volatility was becoming more worrying, and the elder Winchester was no longer in any doubt that the kid was busy putting two and two together and coming up with four thousand when it came to his similarities with Ava. Sam's..._display_ back in the morgue, his anger at the suggestion that Ava might have been responsible for her fiancé's death...it had been more than mere indignation for a vilified friend.

If it was true, if Ava really _had_ flipped her humanity switch...what did that mean for Sam?

Dean might have considered himself to be of vastly less intelligence than his brother, but even _he_ could see the obvious parallel between the two 'psychics'. He could see Sam trying to scry his own future from the clumps of clues and leads that were scattered before them like tea leaf dregs. But his brother was no fortune teller – despite the visions he'd often had. There was no need for Sam to worry himself about predicting the future, not when _Dean_ knew that what his brother feared was never going to happen. Sam wouldn't be turning into a monster. Not while Dean Winchester had any say in the matter.

"So..." Dean ventured, turning to sweep his gaze across Sam's cast iron features. He waited for a twitch, a flicker, some cue that his brother was listening to him. But there was nothing, no sign that his brother was even present. Dean resisted the urge to tap him on the head, half-certain that he'd hear a hollow knocking sound if he did.

Despite Sam's blankness, Dean plunged on; concern over his brother's actions overriding any caution he might ordinarily have felt about raising the subject. "What exactly was that back there, Sam? What's goin' on with you?"

"Nothing," Sam muttered curtly, but it was delivered with all the depth and sincerity of an automaton, the robotic image further intensified by the fact that only his lips had moved. There had been no twitch, no blink, no intake of breath. It might have been a perfect statue of his brother standing before him for all Dean could tell in that moment.

"Right. So your Bruce Banner routine back there was just, what? PMS?" His frustration deepening at Sam's continued lack of reaction, Dean let fly with a jibe he knew from years of experience would push the button he wanted. At least with _pissed off_ Sam he had a chance at some answers, even if he had to endure the resulting tirade to get them.

And, sure enough...Dean mentally counted backwards from three, hitting zero just in time.

Sam's head whipped round, features morphing from vacant indifference to vintage-Sammy-bitchface as he moved, reminding Dean of a lenticular 'happy face, frowny face' picture he'd once exasperatedly bought for his pestering six-year old brother after a rare trip to the toy store. He might have smiled at the memory of Sam's childish euphoria if the adult version hadn't been trying to flash-fry him through glare alone.

"Fine, jerk! You want to know what's going on? What if De'Ath's right, Dean? What if Ava turned?" The younger man's eyes were gleaming with shards of gold from the reflected sunlight as Dean met his gaze, hitting the elder hunter with an image he'd rather not have been privy to. Yellow eyes were something of a sore point in the Winchester family.

Dean raised his eyebrows as Sam's words pricked him sharply. Well, damn.

He'd been right.

But Sam friggin' wasn't. He _wasn't_!

"Based on what, Sam?" Dean threw his arms up, feeling anxiety flare within him once more at the distress radiating tangibly from his brother's clenched expression."The fact that a knife from her _own kitchen_ had her freakin' prints on it? Are you forgettin' the sulphur? There's no evidence she did anything other than get herself snatched by a _demon_, Sam!"

The younger man shook his head slightly, swiping the hair from his creased forehead with an agitated abruptness. "We don't know anything, Dean! Scott Carey had Yellow-Eyes breathing down his neck for weeks, telling him to do all kinds of crap. What if he got to Ava too?"

Arms still raised, Dean lowered his palms in a slow, calming gesture as he watched the battle between panic, anger and worry rage across his brother's face. The clashes seemed to rumble palpably in Sam's eyes, and the elder Winchester warily watched the sparks fly as he carefully levelled his tone.

"Okay. We don't know if he did. But unless that sonofabitch's been whisperin' sweet nothin's into _your_ ear and you haven't been tellin' me, Sammy..."

The younger man sputtered in wide-eyed indignation. "Of course not!"

Dean shrugged, a satisfied smile teasing at his lips. Case closed. "Well, then."

Apparently Sam wasn't convinced, if the tightly pursed lips were anything to go by.

"You just...you don't get it, Dean. If Ava went darkside and killed her fiancé...She's the last person who'd do something like that. If it can happen to _her_...Dean...what if _I–_," Sam's voice was rough as he looked suddenly crestfallen, staring at Dean with a blazing anguish. And the elder hunter felt his heart constrict as he realised why his brother was so upset.

"It's not gonna happen, Sam." _You're never gonna hurt me._ Dean grasped Sam's now vibrating shoulder and squeezed hard, giving him a slight shake.

Sam's voice was almost inaudible as he angled his gaze to the ground. "You don't know that. You _can't_ know that! And after what Gordon said–."

Dean gave his brother's shoulder a rough pat, keeping up the tempo until the younger man raised his head once more. He needed the kid to hear this. "Sammy, you're my _brother_. I know what kinda man you are, and it is _not_ gonna happen. Not while I have anything to do with it. 'Sides, you gonna take that psycho freak's word over _mine_?"

Sam swallowed, dodging Dean's scrutiny as he took a step backwards. "Look, man. I appreciate what you're trying to do. Really. But I just...I need a little time to think about this. I think I'm going to take a walk."

Dean narrowed his eyes as he carefully contemplated his brother's words, mentally twisting and manipulating their meaning like a Rubik's cube, but the answer he wanted eluded him. Maybe some time away from this case would do them good, and Sam clearly needed some distance from the morgue and its many implications.

"Okay, then." He agreed, giving the Impala's roof an affectionate pat before taking a step towards his brother.

But Sam held up a hand to halt him, his mouth an unwelcoming streak across his face. "_Alone_, Dean."

The elder hunter frowned as he caught the gesture, tiny bubbles of unwanted worry fizzing and popping internally at the rejection; rising within him until they were wildly frothing with fear. Sam didn't want him there, was ditching him again – albeit with what seemed like temporary intention. And Dean couldn't stifle the small, niggling voice that was carefully and deliberately telling him that once Sam was out of his sight, he'd be out of it permanently.

But he suspected that his brother knew that.

"Are you–?" He began gingerly, but Sam huffed out an agitated breath and leapt in to interrupt him.

"_Yes_! Jesus, Dean! I just need some friggin' space, is that so much to ask?" Okay, Sam _definitely_ knew, and had begun visibly chafing at the level of supervision that even Dean himself had to admit was dangerously close to being smothering.

But his brother's vehemence had still caught him off guard, and he struggled to cobble together a reasonable argument to counter Sam's insistence. So he gave in. "I guess not. Just..."

"Just, what?" Impatience was radiating from Sam's thrumming frame with an exothermic intensity that seemed to heat the air around him; the kid was practically bouncing on the spot as he waited feverishly for Dean's response. _For his permission?_ The elder hunter found himself wondering in confusion. _Or for his understanding_.

He gazed up at his brother through the canopy of his eyelashes, suddenly unsure how he could possibly put into words all that he really wanted to say.

"Just..." _Be careful. Look after yourself. Come back. "_I'll see you later alright?"

"Yeah," Sam nodded as he began turning away, but he paused abruptly and shot his big brother the tiniest of smiles. "You too, man."

Sam always _had_ been able to read between the lines.

o0o0o

"Well Mr. McCafferty, I wouldn't normally do this. In fact, it's completely against hospital policy. But when Polly mentioned that you were from the _Tribune_...well, I guess I can make an exception," The neurologist leaned towards Dean with a conspiratorial stage whisper, an exaggerated wink crinkling the already ribbed skin at the corner of his eye.

Blinking away the slight frown that had been twitching at the edge of his eyebrows in response to the blatant breach in personal space, the young hunter offered up a closed mouth smile, stepping unobtrusively away from the man's fetid breath. "I appreciate that Dr. Phelps."

Shiny, over-fed cheeks bounced enthusiastically into a beaming grin as the older man laid a guiding hand on Dean's shoulder and began herding him forwards along a hospital corridor so sterile and blank it might have been an unfinished sketch. The elder Winchester gritted his teeth as he fought the urge to shake off the doctor's authoritative gesture, grudgingly admitting to himself that remaining obsequious was more likely to get him what he wanted than simply ripping off the neurologist's brightly coloured Donald Duck tie and using it as a method of strangulation.

Phelps scanned him with piercing, dark eyes as chubby lips squirmed into an affected grimace. "You know, I hate to ask, but you _are_ going to slip my name in there, right?"

Dean felt his eyes begin to roll upwards in response, but scrambled to halt their momentum in the nick of time as he took down his instinctive derision with a flying tackle and wrestled it vigorously into submission. "Absolutely."

Promising the swaggering physician an exclusive had been the only way Dean had been able to think of to circumvent the frustratingly impenetrable St. John's Hospital policy of routing all media communications through a specially appointed department. The spokesperson Dean had had the pleasure of interviewing had demonstrated a talent for talking in circles that had left the young hunter feeling like he'd just gone several sessions on an out of control merry-go-round.

The resulting migraine had eventually diverted him towards another course of action. Polly Owens. Twenty years old. Sagittarius. Secretary to the Head of Neurology, one Doctor David Phelps.

Charming the girl into giving him an introduction had taken all of five minutes; the giggly brunette – skin tinted a neon orange from an overabundance of fake tan and layered make-up – had all but swooned at the sight of him. She'd twirled a permed lock of hair around a slender finger as she'd sucked suggestively on the end of her pen, barely listening as he'd trotted out his cover story. All it had taken had been the provision of his number before she'd been ushering him into the doctor's office, her hands lingering wistfully on his arm long after Phelps had dismissed her.

Dean had been dimly impressed that the girl had even gotten _Tribune_ out of anything he'd said.

"So, what can you tell me about this disease?" Dean queried, stepping casually out of Phelp's slimy grasp as they swished through a set of double doors.

Dean had tried.

He'd really tried.

But as soon as he'd watched his little brother slouch out of sight, Dean had realised that he'd lost the only real shackle that had been keeping him chained to the search for Ava Wilson, that his only real motivator for continuing the task had just walked away from him. His worry for his brother had sat at the back of his mind like a noisy audience member at a movie theatre, yelling obscenities and throwing boulder-sized chunks of popcorn. But despite the tension and unease he'd felt, the feature presentation playing out before his eyes had been too compelling for Dean to abandon.

People were dying. People were suffering. And he could do something about it. What he _couldn't_ do was help his brother. Not if Sam didn't want him to.

So Dean had slumped backwards against the comforting solidity of the Impala, crushed at his own inability to solve Sam's problems like he'd always been able to when they'd been younger, but reluctantly accepting that he'd have to respect his brother's desire for space. Even if it left him with a terrifying sense of vertigo.

If Sam walked away again, he didn't know what he'd do.

But he had to be realistic enough to acknowledge that the more he tried to hold on to his brother, the more the kid would try to pull away.

Catching sight once more of the local paper's melodramatic front page in a vending box across the street from the Impala had eventually clinched it. He'd crammed himself into his car and had been screeching away from the kerb before the clear waters of conscious awareness had filtered down through the sandy layers of his thoughts.

He had to get it out of his system, or he knew he wouldn't have been able to live with himself.

"Oh it is _crazy_like you wouldn't believe!" Phelps huffed theatrically as they walked, appearing mercifully oblivious to Dean's reflexive wince at the unfortunate pun.

"The first person we had was a forty-four year old woman, Moira Evans. Classic signs of Alzheimer-type dementia, but very advanced. And you know what's nuts about it? She was actually a care worker at one of the local specialist dementia care homes. Closed down now though. But it's strange how things turn out, isn't it?"

Phelps was looking expectantly at Dean, as if he was hoping for some sort of erudite response from ace reporter McCafferty. After several beats he appeared to realise that none would be forthcoming.

"Our first thought was early-onset dementia, though she was definitely at the younger end of the scale. But here's the thing: we carried out a CT head scan. No signs of abnormal atrophy, or neoplasms, or any kind of cerebrovascular problems, or even Creutzfeldt-Jacob Disease. But _then_ we ran a functional MRI scan to see if we could find any abnormal patterns of brain activity, and that's where it got interesting."

Dean felt his head began to whirr with the frenzy of a spinning top as he tried to assimilate Phelps' medical jargon, but the words were alien and unintelligible. With a stab of yearning, he thought of his brother. He needed Sammy there beside him; ostensibly to translate, but in reality for much more. Working solo was wrong on so many levels.

"How?"

"Well, the activity we observed was highly similar to what we would expect to see in someone with advanced dementia." Phelps was all movement as he responded: arms waving, fingers flexing, head-jerking; lending him the unfortunate image of a marionette being bounced around by an inept puppeteer. Something that Dean found deeply distracting as he struggled to grasp the crux of what the neurologist was trying to tell him.

"What does that mean?"

"Well I gotta say, at first I thought I was seeing things that weren't there, you know?" Dean found himself grimacing once more at the doctor's flippant speech, and wondered vaguely if the man even knew he was doing it. "An apparently healthy brain showing the kinds of abnormal blood flow and activity of a brain burdened with Alzheimer-type neuropathology..."

Phelps shook his head, pausing to hold yet another door open for the young hunter.

"But her behaviour...profound memory loss, confusion, executive dysfunction, aggression, hallucinations, delusions, disorientation, the deterioration in her language...We did a whole battery of neuropsychological tests, and she fitted the profile to the last letter. As far as I was concerned, this woman had severe dementia."

Dean frowned, a feeling of deepest foreboding beginning to seep downwards through him, gathering like frost in his core. "So what changed your mind?"

Phelps huffed out a breath and cleared his throat. "Well...the only way we can ever be absolutely certain of an Alzheimer's diagnosis is at post-mortem. What we found verified the initial CT. This woman had a perfectly healthy brain. If it hadn't been for the fMRI, I'd have thought I was going senile, you know?"

_Senile? You gotta be kiddin' me_! Dean gave a slight shake of his head, biting back the sarcastic barb he'd have eagerly unleashed under any other circumstances. "And what about the others?"

"Exactly the same, as far as I can tell. And from what we can establish, whatever this _is _seems to develop with unbelievable speed. We're seeing the entire course of a neurodegenerative process that would normally take _decades _happening over a span of a few _days_."

"Is that medically possible in any way?" It wasn't sounding good. Hell, it sounded about as hopeful as a nosediving aircraft, but Dean knew he had to make one last-ditch attempt to rubber-stamp a 'case closed' designation onto the whole situation and file it away in the 'non-supernatural' folder. Or at least to get some sort of resolution to the bitter campaign playing out internally. Election day was approaching, and the elder Winchester hadn't yet committed his vote. Ava and Sam on one ticket, the lives of god only knew how many on the other.

But any hope of an easy choice was ripped from his grasp.

"Not in any way that we can reasonably explain. We've had two more deaths since. Identical presentations. James Carruthers was only twenty-five. Evelyn Smith was thirty. In fact, both of them worked for that care home too, now that I think of it. Strange," Phelps gave a slight shrug before continuing. "We have four other victims in their mid to late thirties. And then of course, Hailey...only _seventeen_. We've all been racking our brains, but not one of us can find a reason. It's absolutely maddening."

Dean stopped dead, forcing the neurologist to take several solo steps forward before realising that he was unaccompanied. "Wait. All three of the first victims worked at the same place?"

The Doctor raised a hand to worry at the thick clump of strawberry blond hair thatching his crown, shooting the hunter a curious glance before answering. "Yes, at the Northview Gardens Care Home. I remember because there was something of a scandal there a few months back. Allegations of abuse, a few unexplained deaths. Nothing was ever proven of course, but the home closed all the same. Too much bad publicity. But that's beside the point."

The elder Winchester's eyebrows flew so high into the stratosphere he was certain they'd disappeared into his own hair. The possibilities were flickering through his mind like a badly edited animation film. Hunting instincts were belting out _vengeful spirit_ in full choral arrangement, the voices merging and echoing hauntingly.

The case was looking more and more like a Winchester special.

"The first three people who died from the...dementia...Were they involved in the allegations?"

The neurologist narrowed his eyes suspiciously. "I believe they _were _as a matter of fact, but Mr McCafferty...I trust this isn't going to be part of your report? I mean, all of that has nothing to do with what's happening here. It would be a shame to divert the focus from St. John's."

_You mean from _yourself_ you glory-seeking sonofabitch_, Dean muttered internally. Aloud however, the elder Winchester assured Phelps that there was no danger of him losing his recognition in the article.

Somewhat more mollified, the Doctor relaxed and gestured towards an imposing set of double doors at the end of the corridor; a more shadowy and ominous passage than in the more well-trodden and public areas of the hospital. The sinister atmosphere of the place had the hairs standing to attention on the back of Dean's neck, and the hunter began to wonder if some unconscious sense of evil involvement had caused hospital staff to situate the victims of this mystery disease in an out of the way bolt-hole.

Drawing closer to the doorway, Dean could see the electronic keypad that barred access to the unauthorised. He was pondering the apparent heartlessness of the measure when Phelps' voice rang out from behind him, seeming to read his thoughts with disconcerting accuracy. "Some of our patients have taken to wandering. We keep the ward locked for their own safety."

"Wandering?" Dean queried, twisting to stare uncomprehendingly at the older man.

"Restlessness and confusion can be common in people with neurodegenerative problems. We weren't sure if it would happen when Moira was first an inpatient here, but one night she took a midnight stroll up to the roof and well...she was extremely disorientated when we found her," Phelps' plump features were squeezed into an expression of sorrow that seemed genuine for the first time, and Dean thought he could finally see what had motivated such an apparently ill-suited man to become a physician.

"So we don't take that chance with any of the others," The neurologist continued shortly, seeming to blink away his pathos as he shifted forward to type in the access code.

Dean had barely stepped foot inside the grim, grey-walled ward – eyes closing briefly at the thick atmosphere of despair that cloaked the air – before a hunched form shuffled into view from around a corner. The movement was aimless, drifting; so lacking in purpose that Dean thought the young woman looked like an unmoored ship.

Dark strands of hair drooped in limp clumps from her lowered head, swinging like vines as she moved and obscuring her face. A pale t-shirt splattered with what looked like coffee stains sat lopsidedly on her slight frame, hanging down over loose pyjamas that wafted along with her as she walked.

"Jennifer, are you okay there?" Phelps gently nudged his way past the frozen hunter and stepped carefully up to the seemingly oblivious woman, laying a hand gingerly on her shoulder.

"Oh!" Her head shot up, hair rearing back like a startled stallion, and she heaved out a burdened sigh. "Oh, Jeez. I'm _so_ late! I can't find my mop. And Mrs Klein always complains if I leave the tiniest _speck_ on her kitchen floor!"

At Dean's bewildered frown, Phelps glanced over his shoulder and muttered an explanation out of the corner of his mouth. "Jennifer is...was...a housekeeper. I know she did a lot of the houses over in the west side of the city. She certainly keeps us on our toes here, that's for sure. Taught our own cleaning staff a thing or two I can tell you!"

"Well don't just stand there!" The young woman had moved closer to the neurologist, clenched fist waving in angry, agitated movements. "That bed ain't gonna make itself!"

"I'll get to it in just a moment Jennifer," Phelps raised both hands in a calming gesture, keeping his voice gentle and unruffled.

"No, you'll do it now Mark or you're grounded!" Tapping a pointed finger urgently on the doctor's shoulder, she turned to gesture emphatically towards an open doorway on the left side of the corridor. "I can't do everything for you, boy. You need to keep your..."

Faltering in her speech, she abruptly let her hand drop bonelessly to her side. Horror demolished her features like a wrecking ball; cheeks imploding from the impact, bloodless lips crumbling under their weight. Slowly she began revolving on the spot, tilting precariously before managing to right herself. With panicked, heaving breaths she stumbled uncertainly towards the room she had earlier indicated with such vehemence. "I don't...Where am I?" Her voice was so small, so broken and raw that Dean felt his own throat close over.

"Jennifer–," The Doctor began, but was cut off prematurely as the young woman swung once more to confront the two men, her hair a tangled frenzy around a face that had turned suddenly turbulent.

"I want to go home. I don't like it here. No one will let me out. I keep asking, and asking, and _askin_g. And no one will let me go! Why are you keeping me here? Am I in prison? Did I do something wrong? _God_, I can't remember!" Her eyes blazed against her wan pallor like headlights as they grew wider in her distress, and she began wringing her hands in violent, frantic movements. "I hurt someone didn't I? Oh god..."

"Jennifer, it's all right. You didn't hurt anybody. You're here so that we can take care of you," The neurologist's tone had taken on an edge that the elder Winchester wasn't sure what to make of. The soothing, pacifying hues were still strong, but there were shades of frustration that darkened his rendering. Of _despair_.

As if Phelps had been through the routine so many times that it had become mere lines on a script; an actor trudging through his thousandth take.

It seemed to take an eternity for the older man's words to sink in. A moment of uneasy, haunting silence as Jennifer's expression seemed to turn glacial, her frown a great crevasse carving through her forehead. Her eyes stared at the linoleum floor, rigid and unseeing as if they were made of glass.

Dean had been about to reflexively move forward to check that she was still breathing when she suddenly seemed to thaw in the heat of his gaze. Head whipping up, she caught sight of Phelps as he inched tentatively towards her.

The relieved smile that breezed across her face was as unexpected as it was brief. The bitten lip and sniffle that replaced it were heartbreakingly anguished. "Oh, Jimmy, I'm so glad you're here. I can't find mommy! I'm lost! I promised her I'd wait by the fountain, but I really wanted to look in the toy store window. I wanted to see the dolls! But now I can't find my way back. Do you think she's going to be mad?"

Dean stared at the woman in open-mouthed shock as she grasped Phelps by the arms with a speed that belied her earlier lack of coordination and began pleading with him in a voice that sounded so like a frightened child that the young hunter felt his own protective instincts begin to stir.

Acting on an instinct he couldn't quite define, he found himself joining Phelps at Jennifer's side, ducking his head slightly to catch her beseeching eyes. "Hey, I'm sure she'll just be happy to see you, Jennifer. She won't be mad at you. 'Sides, I bet the dolls were pretty cool, right? I'll let you in on a little secret," He lowered his voice to a smirking whisper, thinking of the time he'd pilfered a doll accidentally for Sam as a Christmas present in their childhood. "My little brother likes 'em too!"

Her eyes brightened instantly, a delighted smile exploding like a firework display across her face. "I have a brother too! His name's Jimmy. He's my best friend."

Dean had been about to comment about his own relationship with Sam when the young woman's expression plunged suddenly, dark shadows of angst drowning out the earlier sunshine, tears building threateningly in her eyes. "I wonder where he is, have you seen him? He was supposed to come take me to the movies."

The young hunter felt his own heart sink at her words, feeling intuitively that nothing he said would do anything to ease her distress. "I'm sorry, I haven't seen him. But if I do, I'll be sure to let him know you were lookin' for him."

"Thanks Mister." She mumbled, turning away from the two men to begin trailing back in the direction she had come from; her hand skating along the dreary wall as she did so in a wide sweeping pattern that seemed to exist solely for herself.

Dean hadn't realised how stricken he must have looked until he felt the intensity of Phelps' compassionate gaze. He cleared his throat, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. "Is that, uh, normal?" He managed, wiping a hand across his face, trying to scrub away the sadness that clung to his skin like mould.

_Dammit, he had to do _something.

The neurologist sighed, flicking a brief glance towards Jennifer's retreating form. "Well, everyone's different, but confusion and disorientation are pretty common. It's especially sad for these people because we can't even find a cause. And it's even more frustrating because we don't even know how we can treat them."

Dean nodded absently, but inside his mind was busily taking down campaign posters and putting away placards. For the race had been won the instant he'd stepped foot inside the ward, the winner announced with fanfare and ceremony.

"Would you like to meet the others?" Phelps' voice jarred him back to reality, stalling the victory speech in mid-flow. "Kevin Neilson and Regina Martin, I'm sad to say, have become completely withdrawn. We don't hold out much hope for them over the next twenty-four hours, I'm afraid. Robert Kingston is on life support at the moment too. But I'm sure Hailey would be happy to have a visitor. Her parents have been finding it too...upsetting to stay long with her."

Determination hardening his features, the elder Winchester locked his jaw and nodded once more, but this time he was unwavering.

He was going to save these people, and nothing was going to get in his way.

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts._


	3. Black Ice

Hi everyone! Thanks to everyone who reviewed for their kind words, I appreciate them all so much! Thanks also to those who have alerted and favourited. It means the world to me to know that people are enjoying this.

Endless appreciation goes to Sharlot for beta reading this chapter, you're a star! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 3 – Black Ice**

Sam Winchester watched as the sun-dappled water shifted and swayed gently across the grand expanse of the Illinois River before him, tried to feel soothed by it as his eyes slowly explored the latticework contours of the imposing cantilever bridge that traversed its width. As beautiful as the structure was, the study of its craftsmanship had not been enough to prevent the young hunter's focus from drifting inexorably inwards. He'd wandered blindly to Liberty Park, the world around him fading into the background; mere wallpaper lining the boundaries of his mental prison. His aimless legs had drawn him somehow towards the prospect of greenery and open space, of a release from the thoughts that patrolled his mind's cell like nightstick-wielding wardens. Bruises from several thwarted escape attempts already marred his soul, aching at the slightest tentative touch.

But he hadn't found the freedom he'd wanted there.

Sam had thought that being alone, that being out from under the magnified lens of his brother's protective microscope would give him the latitude he needed to sift through the detritus of his messed up existence; to come to terms with his destiny.

He'd been wrong.

Without Dean he had no power, no drive. No will to fight.

Without Dean he remained huddled in the corner of his dungeon cell, hands shielding his face from the onslaught of his own terror as it swooped down to torment him. He needed his brother, realised it now when he hadn't days earlier. Realised that despite his frustration at Dean's reluctance to try his hand in the flame of Sam's apocalyptic future, he couldn't survive without his brother. The Gordon Walker fiasco had more than shown him that. The younger Winchester snorted self-deprecatingly as he recalled that he'd hardly been away from Dean for more than couple of days before he'd been frantically calling him, desperate for his help. He wanted to forget that he'd been the one to put his brother in more danger, that he'd been the reason Dean had been taken hostage, but the knowledge hounded him like Churchill's proverbial Black Dog, growling and snapping at his heels as he tried to dodge its pursuit.

The agitated hunter shook his head slightly, hoping to loosen panic's vice-like chokehold as he struggled to breathe through his distress.

Unbidden, the image of Ava's fiancé shimmered against the darkness in his mind, refusing to vanish as his eyes jolted open in aversion. A pale death mask continued to meet his fleeing gaze, stonewalling him at every turn. The slash on Brady's neck leered revoltingly at him, forcing him to swat away images of Ava's petite hand coldly wielding a gleaming blade. He winced as he watched her wrist descend, cringed as he heard the squelching sound of gutted flesh, shivered as he felt flecks of blood paint his cheeks.

She couldn't have done it. She just couldn't.

Not Ava. Not the endearingly neurotic, kooky girl who had – against her better judgement - dropped everything to come to his aid, a stranger she'd seen in a dream. The girl who'd saved both his life _and_ Dean's.

But yet...

Sam wanted to blame the newspaper article for lighting the spark of fear within him, wanted to believe that what he'd been feeling was some new and inconceivable horror to be grappled with. But deep down, in that part of himself that refused to be pacified by his usual avoidance tactics, he couldn't lie to himself. He knew that the report had merely reawakened the latent suspicion that had lain inside him for months. Knew it was more than just vulgar gossip that his rumour mill mind had dredged up purely to torment him.

There might have been signs of demonic activity back at Ava's house, but how could he be certain that the demon hadn't come to _persuade_ her rather than merely take her? What if Yellow-Eyes had flicked a switch? What if he'd entered through some sort of programming backdoor in Ava's mind and messed with her code? Maybe she'd had no control over it.

Maybe _he_ would have no control over it.

Dean's declaration of faith outside the morgue had warmed him as much as it had frightened him. The already unfathomable worry that his big brother would become afraid of him, would cease to believe in him, paled into insignificance in the face of his visceral terror that Dean would end up in the line of an evil Sam's fire through blind trust alone.

The image of the knife descending bled into his vision once more, only this time it was _his_ fingers curled around the hilt, slicing through the neck of a body that suddenly bore his brother's face.

Physically recoiling from the onslaught that seemed to attack him from all sensory directions, the younger Winchester raked agitated hands across his face, tearing at his eyes as if through touch alone he could erase his own twisted conception. Dammit he _had_ to be stopped! He couldn't be the one to hurt his big brother. The thought alone sent a lurching shiver of repulsion down his spine, left him feeling a taint that he wanted to scrub clean from his body. There was blood on his hands, rusting against the skin, seeping into wrinkled grooves on his knuckles. It didn't matter that nothing had happened, that Dean was okay.

The fear of harming his brother was too great. The fear of harming _anyone_ too unbearable.

_Out, damned spot_! He couldn't help think, the image of Lady Macbeth compulsively scouring her hands coming easily to mind as he battled the sudden urge to return to the motel and let the shower's scalding water blast his stained skin until it blistered. The anxiety was like a writhing snake within him, fangs bared, hissing and spitting in fury. He couldn't let it happen, he couldn't ever lose himself.

But what if he did? What if there was something lying dormant within him, something that merely required Yellow-Eyes to come along and nudge it into destructive wakefulness?

There was only one option. And dammit, but John Winchester had hit the nail on the head with his frustratingly characteristic pragmatism.

He hated to think about the promise Dean had made to their father, and the crate of toxic cargo it had dragged along with it. He could feel tears of primal despair building at the corners of his eyes at the thought of what he might become, of what their seemingly unflappable father had been scared enough to reveal to his big brother. There was no one else he trusted to do what needed to be done. Dean would have to be the one. His big brother was the only person he could depend on to take him down, to stop him from becoming an abomination. To stop him from becoming a murderer.

He needed to know that Dean would grant him that promise.

The younger Winchester heaved a sigh that seemed to plunder the depths of his soul, dragging from him an anguish that was aching and raw. As much as Sam wanted that promise – the warming, comforting relief of knowing that Dean would take care of everything as he always had – the young hunter had only to think of the lines of strain that had begun mapping his brother's face as the months wore on, before realising that now was not the time to add to the older man's burden.

Dean's worry had begun to haemorrhage uncontrollably from the raw, open wounds in his eyes. The elder hunter had a repertoire of masked expressions that rendered his emotions incognito to anyone who couldn't translate the nuances of his gaze. Sam had thought he'd lost the ability to read his big brother after he'd discovered 'the big secret', but when he'd dismantled the core of his disappointment and examined its components, he'd realised that he'd always known Dean had been burying something. He'd just thought he'd known what it was. But he'd been mistaken.

Now it was all too obvious.

Sam knew that Dean wasn't ready, was still hacking through the snarled foliage of shock and denial that had sprouted before him at their father's revelation. It would take Dean time to slash his way towards the path that ran through its core, to reach the conclusion that Sam needed him to. But for now, the knowledge of his role in his little brother's destiny would have to be kept secret. Agitated, the young hunter turned his back on the river, feeling somehow unworthy of its beauty. Something had changed within him, the unnerving fluidity of the unknown had become solidified into an almost reassuring certainty at his decision. And yet...there was so much that Sam couldn't comprehend. So much that he couldn't be sure of. He might have been worried about his own destiny, and about what it meant for him. But he couldn't make assumptions about Ava, he knew that now. There was the possibility that she had turned, but there was also the possibility that she needed someone to come to her rescue. He couldn't abandon her, not when she had dropped everything to come to his aid.

He had to know what had happened to her. He had to save her.

If she needed saving.

And maybe, along the way, he could find some redemption for himself.

Swallowing heavily, forcing down his doubt and fear, his unease at what he couldn't control, he pushed himself away from the railing. It was time to take action. He had to stop giving his destiny the power to dictate his life, to steer him along whatever treacherous road it had chosen for him. It was time for _him_ to take the wheel.

He had to find Ava. Enough time had already been wasted.

Moving on autopilot, the journey to the motel seemed to pass without conscious awareness, Sam's forward focussed vision blinkered by a newly regained determination that spared him the extraneous detail of the places and people he had passed on his way. Nothing mattered but his goal.

The Impala was sitting faithfully outside the door of their room when he arrived, the car's reassuring presence loosening and melting something intangible deep within that the young hunter hadn't even been aware of. Suddenly he really wanted to see his big brother, the yearning so redolent of his childhood years that he found himself gulping back a sob. For a brief moment he was Sammy, the five year old boy who'd just skinned his knee; Dean the big brother who would swoop down to tend to his wound and soothe his tears. The big brother who could solve everything. But Dean had wounds of his own, and Sam knew that he couldn't keep expecting his brother to take the weight from his shoulders.

The elder hunter was seated at the room's flimsy table when Sam nudged his way through the door, the laptop open and whirring on its tilted surface. Utterly engrossed in his task, it took several moments for the older man to register his littler brother's entrance, giving Sam valuable seconds to study him. The haunting glow from the computer screen seemed to deepen the shadows on Dean's face, to hollow the planes of his cheeks, giving him an almost wraith-like appearance against the saturation of the room's colourful backdrop. His eyes shone in the laptop's reflected light, beaming out from the recesses of his sockets like the glow of a caver's flashlight. Sam's focus sharpened as he took in his brother's wan complexion, the way his freckles stood out like charcoal smudges against his ashen skin, the frown chiselled harshly on his brow. Instantly concerned, he scanned the older man's body, looking for signs of illness or injury.

"Hey," Dean grunted out a greeting, eyes flicking briefly upwards from the computer to skewer the younger man with a quick but nevertheless thorough examination; his gaze cataloguing and analysing every subtlety of manner and stance with an intensity that would normally have been immensely irritating. But this time Sam was only too happy to oblige him, knowing all about the rituals of reassurance seeking.

"Feelin' better?" The elder Winchester probed warily, glancing back at the laptop screen before tapping a couple of keys and lowering the lid with a casualness that seemed too contrived to be genuine.

Sam felt his brow twitch slightly at Dean's secretive gesture, but nevertheless attempted a smile as he moved to sit opposite his brother at the table, scribbling a mental note to check the internet browser history later. "Uh, yeah. Cleared my head a little."

He'd been certain that his upbeat tone had sounded as forced to Dean as it had to his own ears, but the elder hunter neglected to call him on it. Instead his brother merely nodded silently, levelling Sam with a vaguely familiar expression that the younger man couldn't quite place; that had him rooting around in the bowels of his mental repository for its elusive title. It was several seconds before he placed it.

Hope.

It was an arrangement of features that had seemed so alien to Dean of late that Sam began to wonder if his big brother had been replaced by a shapeshifter at some point during his absence.

Resisting the urge to reach for his silver knife just in case, the younger Winchester bit his lip, trying not to feel guilty at his inadvertent deception. If Dean wanted to believe that things were better, then Sam didn't want to disabuse him of the notion. No matter how wide of the mark his brother's belief might have been. Dean had had precious little to be hopeful about in recent months – or hell, his whole friggin' _life –_ and Sam knew that it wouldn't be long before he ruined it once more.

He couldn't help but think of the stricken expression on his brother's face back in that dreary Rivergrove clinic.

_I'm tired, Sam. I'm tired of this job, this life, this weight on my shoulders, man. I'm tired of it._

Maybe he'd been too hard on Dean, so caught up in his _own_ distress that he hadn't noticed his brother's. In all the drama surrounding the murder of Scott Carey, Dean's kidnapping and Sam's attempted murder, the younger Winchester had somehow forgotten that his brother had been willing to die alongside him back in Rivergrove. That Dean hadn't had the will to go on without him.

"Listen, Dean..." He began, feeling suddenly abashed as he remembered his earlier behaviour: his harsh words the previous day, his anger at the morgue, the way he'd pushed his brother away.

The elder Winchester raised his eyebrows quizzically at the overt reticence that Sam had tried and failed to suppress. "What?" There was nothing but incomprehension in his brother's features, and the younger man couldn't help but marvel at Dean's almost perpetual inability to register when an apology was forthcoming.

"About earlier...Look man, I'm sorry." Sam mumbled sheepishly, aware that Dean probably wouldn't even realise the extent of his regret.

Bracing himself for censure, he ducked his head, deciding that carrying out a thorough survey of the table surface between them was a safer option that meeting his brother's stare. When Dean gave a tiny snort he snapped his eyes upwards, instantly halting his assessment of the table's wooden topography. He was somewhat surprised to find his big brother steadily contemplating him from behind softened eyes.

"Got nothin' to be sorry about, Sammy," Dean murmured with a dismissive wave of his hand, before leaning forward with a wicked grin. "Though if you wanna make it up to me, I accept all major credit cards. And pie."

Sam barked out a laugh before he could stop himself. "Shut up, jerk!" He tossed back with a traitorous smirk, beginning to loosen his tie as he felt some of the tension ease from his bunched shoulders.

Dean cocked his head and shrugged in response. "Just sayin'."

Sam closed his eyes, letting out an exaggerated, long suffering sigh; his expression of exasperation pitched at the optimum level to let his brother know _just_ how much he had to put up with. "I didn't know you were so high maintenance, Dean!"

"Says the man who uses _conditioner_ on his hair!" Dean threw back mockingly with an accompanying eye roll.

"That was one friggin' time, dude! I swear I bought it by mistake," Sam defended with mock indignation, feeling the lightness of their easy banter begin to tease at the edges of the darkness that had been shrouding his soul. Somehow Dean always knew what to do, always found a way to stop him from drowning in the depths of his own roiling rumination. And Sam was more than happy to play along with his big brother's game. Besides, the younger man suspected that Dean needed it just as much as _he_ did.

"Excuses, excuses," Dean retorted in a sing-song voice, a knowing smile curling at his lips.

Unable to compose a witty rebuke, Sam settled for a pulled face and dissenting snort. Ignoring Dean's triumphant chuckle, he rose from his chair, crunching across the sisal carpet towards the kitchenette; a sudden desire for caffeine sending him on a scavenger hunt for the coffee culprit responsible for the lingering scent that hung in the air. "So, uh, what did you get up to while I was, uh...taking a walk?"

Unsurprised to find that Dean had recently brewed himself a cup, the younger Winchester set about pouring one of his own, not realising until after he had taken his first sip that his brother had yet to answer his question. "Dean?" He queried, turning to face the elder hunter as he leaned back against the counter.

The sight that greeted him instantly set his internal Dean sensors tingling, immediately arming his protective instincts and sparking his concern. "You okay?" He demanded, brows colliding in an epic joust as he waited in tense silence for his brother's response.

Dean's sickly pallor had paled to somewhere in the region of sour milk, the sense of lifelessness that that emanated from him further intensified by hooded, glassy eyes and grim, slackened lips. The image was so evocative that Sam thought he could almost smell the formaldehyde fumes left behind by whoever had embalmed his brother's cadaverous body and left him rigidly propped up in the motel room.

"Yeah, I'm fine." Came the predictable answer, but Sam found himself feeling almost insulted by the lack of effort that had gone into the charade.

The younger Winchester narrowed his eyes. "You wanna try that one again?"

"Excuse me?" Dean's voice had lowered dangerously, warning Sam in no uncertain terms that he was trespassing on private property.

But Sam wasn't about to be deterred. "Did something happen while I was out?" He asked gently, stiffening as an unpleasant thought entered his head. "Is it Gordon?"

Dean twitched slightly at Sam's panicked squeak. "No! Nothin' happened, and no...as far as I know Gordon Walker is still enjoyin' all that the state pen has to offer."

"What, then?"

"I told you, Sam. It's nothin'. I'm just tired."

_I'm tired of this job, this life, this weight on my shoulders._

Sam could well believe _that_. And though he felt certain there was more to it than Dean was letting on, it was entirely plausible that their earlier conversation outside the morgue had sent his brother into just as disorientating a tailspin as it had himself. Reluctant to return to that particularly _shining_ moment, Sam decided to let the matter drop. But he didn't intend to let go of it completely.

"Okay," He muttered shortly, making sure his brother understood the temporary nature of the reprieve.

The elder hunter nodded silently, whether in acknowledgement of Sam's unvoiced caveat or merely in agreement with his curt pronouncement, the younger man couldn't tell. "So, what now?"

Sam took a long swig of his coffee, grimacing slightly as it oozed thickly down his throat; he'd forgotten the unfortunate tendency of motel coffee to congeal itself into a gritty sludge if left unattended for more than a couple of minutes.

Clearing away the lingering sediment from the back of his throat, the younger hunter turned to deposit his empty cup on the kitchenette counter. "Ava's family. I think I'm going to head to Chicago, see if I can speak to them. But I think you should stay here, take a look at some of the city records. I think we need to know more about Ava's background. We know her mom didn't die in a fire. So how did she get her psychic powers?"

The silence that greeted his declaration seemed to hum like a bad phone connection, as if Dean was on the other side of the country and not just a few feet away.

When Dean eventually answered, it was in a small, uncertain voice that tugged suddenly at Sam's heart. "You wanna split up on this one?"

Stamping down the small uprising of guilt that had begun rumbling in the pit of his stomach, Sam instead decided that exasperation was a more easily managed emotion. How many times was he going to have to keep reassuring his brother of his return before Dean would finally get the message? Sam had been longing to finally salt and burn the ghost that had been haunting the shadows of his big brother's gaze since Rivergrove.

"We don't have much time to find her, Dean," He sighed, twisting his lips ruefully. "I don't like it any more than you do, but we got a lot of ground to cover."

Dean pursed his lips tightly as he considered his little brother's proposal. The silence lasted for several uncomfortable beats, and Sam had almost managed to convince himself that his brother was going to refuse when Dean surprised him with an abrupt shrug.

"All right. But you ain't takin' my car." A small candle would have given off more light than his brother's flickering attempt at a smile, and Sam found himself wanting to fan the flame, wanting to regain the levity they'd enjoyed just minutes earlier.

"Fine. I'll be able to blend in more that way." He lifted his chin in exaggerated smugness, knowing that any slight against the Impala was guaranteed to trigger snarky Dean.

"Blend in? A sasquatch like you?" He didn't disappoint.

"Ha ha, let me know when the real jokes are going to start coming Dean. I want to be prepared." Sam deadpanned, smirking internally as the elder hunter snorted involuntarily.

"_Yeah_, yeah," Dean waved a hand in the air between them, as if to bat aside his little brother's mocking words before turning solemn once more. "Listen, watch your back out there, huh?"

_You too, man._

o0o0o

Driving through the suburban sprawl of West Peoria felt to Dean like being swallowed by an interminable, swirling vortex of brick and clapboard; row upon row of residential rank and file clones facing off across grid patterned streets. Despite the uncompromising regularity and order of the place, the young hunter couldn't help but feel disorientated as he tried to find his bearings. Every cul de sac was a blockade, every corner a pathway in the duplicitous maze, luring him ever deeper towards its inescapable core.

Finding his way back out again was going to be a _bitch_.

Buffed and polished number plaques winked teasingly back at him from roughly hewn stone gateposts in the afternoon sunshine, forcing narrowed eyes and an unsightly squint as the elder Winchester strained to catch sight of the address he was looking for. A light breeze danced carelessly through the Impala's open window and across his bare forearms, teasing his wrinkled nose with the scent of an unidentified flower as he turned his head this way and that, scanning for his target.

Fiona Adams' house was an indistinguishable needle nestling somewhere in this housing estate haystack, Dean was sure, but after spending the greater part of half an hour scouring the place, the hunter had begun to feel increasingly more discouraged. Especially when his scrunched eyes caught sight of the same battered brown Mercedes he knew he'd seen at least three times earlier – not least because he'd winced reflexively at its shabby condition every time. Some people had no pride.

After seeing Sam off – the kid having insisted on renting a car despite Dean's impassioned (and financially motivated) protest, sheepishly mumbling something about how he'd already stolen enough cars for one week – the elder Winchester had dropped and rolled, forcibly smothering the embers of fear that his brother's departure had sparked in his heart.

The elementary fire safety procedure having been deployed to excellent effect, Dean had squared his overburdened shoulders and had dutifully headed off to begin the task of reviewing Ava's family records.

Doggedly his eyes had traipsed along line after boring line of utter worthlessness; guilt at having lied to his brother powering a newfound enthusiasm that hadn't even been dampened by the school of dust motes that had swam in great clouds around his poky, dim reading space – diving irritatingly up his nostrils and itching at his exhausted retinas. He'd tried not to remember the concern that had wrenched at his brother's features back at the motel as he'd thumbed through discoloured, grainy records searching for something beyond the scant, dry details of lives long since lived. He'd tried to forget about the deception he'd pulled, willing himself not to feel the discomfort that had bubbled beneath his skin like acid as he'd scribbled down his observations – the majority of which he'd never really be able to show his brother, given that they mostly consisted of disparaging comments in which the words 'crap', 'pile' and 'of' featured with disheartening frequency.

He'd tried not to think about what the lie might cost him. Keeping things from his brother had never ended well, the past week having been as potent a reminder as he should ever have needed.

And yet, back at the motel room when Sam had asked him what had happened, where he'd been during his little brother's absence...the elder hunter had palpably felt himself clam up: the tension that had solidified his shoulders, the deepening ache from the force of his clenched jaw, the way his seizing heart had started flinging itself wildly around in his ribcage. His body silently cueing him to keep his mouth shut.

And so he had.

But inevitably, despite the intensity of his regret, his conscience's vociferous diatribe had run out of steam somewhere around the two hour mark – Dean's attention span having given out some time earlier. Especially after a continued lack of anything remotely useful. And so the elder Winchester had found his mind wandering. And it had gone far beyond a mere meandering stroll on a sunny afternoon. No, Dean's mind had driven straight to the airport, climbed aboard the nearest jumbo jet and had taken off into the sunset.

Towards the Northview Gardens Care Home and its mysterious deaths.

It had been making the journey so often over the past few hours that the air-miles he'd notched up would have been spectacular.

And so, decision made he'd quickly fudged his way through an inquiring phone call from his brother, and had abandoned the city records to fester in their own dust.

Earlier in the day, after his visit to St John's Hospital, Dean had made a beeline for the motel, and the laptop.

The journey had been fraught and disturbing as he'd screeched his way around apparitions that seemed to have grey, blank faces and shuffling, aimless bodies as they popped up in front of the Impala's fender like baddies in a poor quality shoot 'em up video game. The sound of Hailey Meier's flat, emotionless voice indifferently reciting the alphabet managing to drown out even AC/DC's _Thunderstruck_ as he'd harshly rammed the Chevy through the floating spectres, dispersing them as neatly as a rocksalt blast.

Finding Sam still absent from the motel room, and gulping back the rising hurt that had swollen in his throat at the discovery, he'd swiftly booted up the laptop and begun his investigation.

He hadn't needed more than a cursory search of the local newspaper website to find the story he'd been looking for. Lips curling in faint disgust he'd frowned his way through the contents of the most recent article, a convoluted tale that had featured in the paper just a few months earlier, boasting more twists and turns than a cheap paperback thriller. Not that Dean _read_ or anything.

Northview Gardens had slammed shut its doors amidst a maelstrom of controversy, its reputation shredded beyond repair after a hurricane-force media campaign had swept through its core, toppling the foundations of public confidence and leaving as casualties the careers of all who had been its custodians.

The deaths of elderly residents there had been few and far between over the years, it seemed. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing suspicious. It hadn't been until the care home had seen an uncharacteristic rise in body count over the space of a single year that the problems had started. Seven of the home's twenty-five residents had died under circumstances that had been just strange enough to begin attracting attention. Questions had been asked, for which satisfactory answers had been disconcertingly non-forthcoming. With the care home management team appearing to demonstrate an impressive flair for creative circumlocution, and with more than a few alleged bribes furtively changing hands between interested parties, it had looked like the storm would blow over.

And then Fiona Adams had come along, dampening the festivities and putting the firm kibosh on any premature celebrations.

Daughter to the most recently deceased, outrage over the perceived whitewash had forced her to speak out, to become the driver behind the main campaign that had brought about the institution's eventual downfall. Her mother had been seventy-eight year old Doris Adams. The first of two published pictures showed a bright smile and gleaming eyes, the well-worn skin crinkling at their edges a testament to a lifetime of good humour. Clouds of white hair billowed atop a petite head, coiffed and elegant. This was Doris before she'd taken up residence at the home, a mere eight months before her inexplicable death. The second picture was almost painful to look at. Matted, half-hearted wisps of lacklustre, grey hair curled feebly at her temples to frame sagging, parchment-covered cheeks and a glassy stare. Dean felt malnourished just looking at her, could feel the desolation that screamed from every pore of her dulled skin.

Her daughter hadn't spared any details when she'd spoken to the newspaper about the abuse she'd witnessed her mother suffering at the hands of her caretakers. Levels of cruelty and neglect that had made a disgusted Dean nauseous to read through, that had made swallowing past the lump in his throat a task of near herculean proportions. Her allegations – having previously been ignored on numerous occasions with a callous disregard that had made Dean's fists curl in anger – had in the wake of the deaths become the catalyst for a large scale criminal investigation.

For which one Detective Sergeant Robert Kingston had been the lead. The same Robert Kingston whose lungs had ceased to function beyond the artificial aid of life support equipment back at St John's. The same Robert Kingston who'd been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease at the age of thirty-nine.

Dean Winchester didn't believe in coincidences. The supernatural had put paid to any thoughts of harmlessly co-occurring events at a depressingly young age. And the fact that not only three of the care workers at the centre of the criminal investigation, but the man who had _conducted_ it too, had all succumbed to the mystery disease was not something that the elder Winchester was prepared to ignore. That the investigation had subsequently been mothballed due to lack of evidence served only to reinforce conditions that were prime hunting grounds for a vengeful spirit.

It had been at that point in his research that Sammy had returned to the motel room and interrupted him, and Dean had been so relieved that the kid had actually come back of his own accord that any irritation he might have felt had immediately vanished.

But it had been Doris Adams who had stuck in the young hunter's mind as he'd returned to the Impala after his fruitless search of the city records. The utter emptiness in eyes that had once been brimming, the desolate wasteland where once had been boisterous life. Dean knew he could have looked for any one of the families of those residents who had died, but there had been something acutely compelling about the woman in the photographs.

A quick perusal of the local phone book had garnered her daughter's address.

And so Dean had found himself lost in suburbia, a hopeless traveller wandering in circles. Who'd managed to pass the same friggin' house four friggin' times.

Finally admitting defeat he swung the Impala to a halt at the kerb belonging to one production line property, where a leather-skinned elderly man was kneeling in the shrubbery of his garden, tending to a flowerbed that Dean decided was probably responsible for the cloying scent in the air. Wincing at the course of action he'd been reduced to, he reluctantly clambered out of the Impala to ask for directions.

The man eyed Dean warily from underneath a wide-brimmed Stetson, pale blue irises flicking up and down the young hunter's frame in blatant assessment, but nevertheless rattled off directions in a voice that creaked like an old mattress. Fiona Adams' house turned out to be at the next corner, and after being warned that "She keeps to herself, that one," with the kind of all-knowing, mysterious tone of a kerbside fortune teller, Dean hopped back into his car and continued cruising along the conveyor-belt street.

The flawless, steeply roofed box that belonged to Fiona Adams practically preened as the elder Winchester drew up at its gate. There was something insidiously plastic about the meticulously kept dwelling, Dean couldn't help but think as he surveyed the gleaming white clapboard walls, the scrumptious candy apple red front door, the glittering windows, and the miniature white picket fences that sectioned off symmetrically arranged flowerbeds.

Crossing the velvet smooth lawn, the elder Winchester felt as if he'd just walked onto a movie set. There was such a perfect lifelessness to the place that Dean half expected to hear someone calling _action!_ as he creaked his way up the delicately weathered wooden steps to the front door.

He'd just raised his fist to knock against the shiny red veneer when it fell open without warning, giving him a sudden and childish 'open sesame' sense of glee. Which quickly silenced itself beneath a cleared throat and a nervous swallow as soon as the expanse of his gaze drew inwards upon the figure of the woman framing the doorway.

Dean didn't quite know what he'd expected, the image of Fiona Adams having existed until then as a vague composite in his mind of all the middle-aged, battle-axe women he'd been unfortunate enough to encounter over the course of his life. He'd thought of a hairy upper lip, a chiselled scowl and glacial eyes.

The reality threw him, the package before him forming entirely the wrong shape for his mental mailbox.

"Can I help you?" The words were forced, hurried. Fortified with coded layers of defence that the hunter sensed instantly but couldn't decipher beyond the obvious 'there's a strange man on my doorstep' cautiousness.

Fiona Adams' head poked out from within a tortoiseshell of hunched shoulders, the inherently huddled stance telling of a lifetime of intended unobtrusiveness. Owlish eyes blinked wetly up at him, the added magnification of her spectacles making them seem comically disproportionate to her diamond shaped face. Faceted cheeks protruded sharply above rosebud lips, the harsh visage further accentuated by the unforgiving bun that imprisoned greying, ebony hair.

"Uh, Miss Adams?" Dean croaked uncomfortably, shifting awkwardly on the doorstep as his usual confidence turned tail and fled. What the hell was wrong with him?

"Yes?" The affirmation was almost accusatory as she cocked her head expectantly, the movement of her neck almost turtle-like as her lips retreated into a pale line.

"My name is, uh, Dean McCafferty. I'm an...," Dean found himself faltering as he considered the implications of his lie. Did he really want to use this woman? After everything she'd been through? But then again...people were _dying_. There would be time to listen to his conscience later. Once Hailey Meier was back with her parents.

"I'm an investigative reporter workin' for the _Tribune_," Dean continued, noting in relief that the woman hadn't appeared to catch his momentary hesitation. "I'm lookin' into what happened at Northview Gardens."

Her face paled so quickly that the young hunter almost expected her to drop to the floor in a dead faint. To her credit however, she merely swayed slightly on the spot, enormous eyes widening as she took in his words.

"Well then," She inhaled deeply before expelling the air noisily through her nostrils. "I guess you'd better come in."

Dean declined the unenthusiastic offer of coffee, not wanting to take any more from the grieving woman than was absolutely necessary. His exploitative intent ground uncomfortably against his skin, grating painfully at each movement. Again he questioned his unusual discomfort. He normally relied on _Sam _to be the one to tell him when he was going too far. He'd become so used to the habitual throat clearing, admonishing nudges and surly pouting that he'd almost forgotten what it was like to do this by himself.

A hallway so narrow that it seemed to brush against either side of Dean's shoulders led them several steps inwards towards a cosy living room that shone golden in the afternoon sun, its centre stage window offering a prime view of the street outside.

And explaining the woman's uncanny prescience at his arrival.

The room was as orderly as the building's exterior. Unsurprised, Dean cast a surreptitious eye across flower patterned couches, textured wallpaper, and lace-covered lampshades, noting vaguely that everything was symmetrically placed, as if rulers and triangles had been employed with ruthless precision.

Facing off against each other from across a polished mahogany coffee table garnished with an eye-wateringly odorous bowl of pot pourri, the elder Winchester tried hard not to squirm under the woman's fiercely penetrating gaze.

"So, Mr McCafferty. I suppose you want to know about my mother."

Yes. He did. "Uh...well–."

"If you've come here for some kind of sensationalist crap about what she went through at that place, you may as well leave now." Fiona was looking very much like she regretted letting him in, as if she'd awoken from a trance to find that she'd taken a wrong turn several intersections ago.

The young hunter hastened to reassure her. "_No_. No, not at all. I just wanna know what happened. I know the police shut down the investigation. And I think they were wrong. I think that the people responsible for this did some very bad things."

A shadow scudded ominously across her face at his words, a pale fire flaring up in the depths of her eyes at its passing. She nodded absently, turning towards the window to stare blankly out at the street. "It only took eight months for my mother to turn from my _mom_ into some skeleton, a shadow. It was her, but wasn't _her_, if you know what I mean? The home had their so-called medical experts saying that it was just her Alzheimer's that had accelerated, but there's just no way. It was no more than mild when she moved there."

Dean nodded encouragingly, realising the redundancy of the action when the woman continued to avoid his eyes.

"I didn't notice much at first, you know?" Her voice roughened as she sniffed heavily. "There were times I'd go visit her in the middle of the afternoon and she was still in bed, with the rails up at the side. When I asked the staff...they said it was to stop her from rolling out of bed at night. But they couldn't explain why they'd been left up during the day." She turned finally to puncture Dean with a piercing stare.

"You have to understand. My mother was fit and able when she went in that place. There was no reason why she should have been left in bed like that, like a prisoner. I lost count of how many times it happened," She snorted mirthlessly. "And that was the tip of the iceberg. They doped her up with all kinds of stuff. Kept telling me she was acting out, shouting and trashing the place. The drugs were 'necessary', they said. She became like a zombie."

"Sometimes she'd beg me for food. She'd say they hadn't been feeding her. And what did I do? I told her to stop being silly! When she lost twenty pounds over the space of six weeks, I knew it was true. That was right before she died. I complained to everyone I could think of, but I got nowhere. I was frantically trying to find somewhere else that would take her. I wanted to get her out of there." Dean fought a creeping nausea as he watched the tears begin to bloom at the corners of Fiona's eyes.

"I'd see bruises on her from time to time. The staff said she kept falling over, that her Alzheimer's was making her too uncoordinated. It could have been true, but the patterns of bruising didn't make sense. And one time I went to give her a kiss and she cried out. She was so scared. And then she realised it was me, and _apologised_, of all things!"

The elder Winchester felt tentacles of anger reach around his heart, the constriction crippling him as he tried to imagine what Doris Adams had gone through. What the other residents had likely endured too.

"Miss Adams," He began softly, his voice straining as it battled against the baseball-sized lump in his throat. "Did this happen to other people too?"

"From the people I spoke to, yes. Others had complained too, but somehow it was all swept under the rug. But yes, I heard that one of the victims, Donald Pearson died after one of the staff members there, _James Carruthers_, hit him. Of course, the management passed it off as an accidental fall, but we all knew."

Dean winced internally, offering up a sympathetic frown as his mind feverishly worked away at the possibilities. A vengeful spirit was still looking like the most obvious conclusion, but the potential for _seven_ of them was more than a little disheartening. It might have been one, or _all_. He cleared his throat loudly, readying himself for the million dollar question; the one that never quite sounded right, no matter how many times he asked it.

His lips spasmed nervously as his eyes sought to land anywhere but on the woman's face. He found himself honing in on four olive green candles that sat atop a white wooden shelf. Mentally measuring the spaces between them, he realised distractedly that they were completely identical.

"Miss Adams...Just for the purposes of, uh, fact checking...I wonder if you could tell me where your mother was buried?"

Fiona shot him a bitchface of such prowess it would have put even his brother to shame, and for a long moment Dean expected her to leap from her seat and shoo him from the house. But she merely bristled visibly as though a stiff breeze had blown through the room, and turned to pinion him with a stern glare.

"Mr McCafferty, I don't know where you get your facts _from_, but my mother wasn't buried. She was cremated."

o0o0o

So Doris Adams was out. Probably.

Along with the remaining six deceased, as several excruciatingly awkward phone calls had informed him. The inconvenient fact that their families all now resided out of town had necessitated the hasty telephone survey, and Dean had translated four furious tirades, an incomprehensibly sobbing wail and the curiously jumbled response of a child who had answered his call by mistake into one depressing conclusion.

And what were the freakin' odds? That they'd have _all_ been cremated?

Unbe-_freakin_-leivable.

The elder Winchester sighed as the barrage of many millions of possibilities pelted him in a painful hail shower of frustrating despair. Any one of the potential spirits – or _all_ as he repeatedly and exasperatedly reminded himself – might have been attached to the tiniest freakin' speck of nothing in that damned care home. In fact, whatever it was that they were bound to might not even be there any more. Could have been anywhere, really.

_Great. Just great._

But Dean was trying not to dwell on that as he pulled up outside the sorry-looking building, a sheen of growing cloud cover casting a foreboding gloom over the place that sent an unwelcome shiver cascading chillingly down the length of the hunter's spine. Dean grimaced as he took in the shabby, hunched structure before him. Set at the tip of a winding and sinister gravel driveway, the faded grandeur of the property might have been saddening if it hadn't given the impression that its original outlook had been one of austere haughtiness. The aura of despondency that hung in the air felt incongruous. Until the elder Winchester remembered what had gone on there.

Two large, jutting bay windows seemed to track his movements as he retrieved his duffel from the Impala's trunk, turning the hairs on the back of his neck ramrod straight.

Satisfied that his duffel was amply stocked with both weaponry and rocksalt, Dean pulled out his EMF meter and set off across the gravel towards the imposing entranceway. Skittering slightly on a patch of uneven ground, the young hunter glanced up at the windows once more, wondering at his audience as he sensed an expression of amusement that was not his own. The windows stared passively back at him, but something eerie in their depths made him reach into the duffel for his shotgun. Grasping it reassuringly in a tightened fist, he told himself to stop being such a big friggin' girl and continued on his way, marching with a kind of faux confidence that was in no way reassuring. Hunting with Sam had clearly turned him into the world's biggest wuss.

He shook his head jerkily, not wanting to be further reminded of the fact that he was hunting solo. By his own choosing.

Making short work of the padlock barring the front door in his unease, Dean couldn't help but cringe as the thick chains slithered through his fumbling fingers and crashed to the ground with a rattling clang, the lock itself following with a resounding clunk.

Well, if there hadn't been any spirits awake in the building before, there sure as hell would have been after _that_ performance. Talk about waking the dead...

Scowling at his uncharacteristic jitters, he shoved at the door with added vigour, nearly overbalancing as it flew open easily with a throaty wheeze.

Dean held his breath in the hollow silence that followed, shotgun partially raised against any lurking attacker. With seasoned proficiency, he scanned the grimy foyer, quickly mapping entrances and exits as his eyes ducked and swooped from the regally sweeping staircase, to the ill-fitting strip lights that scarred the ornately plastered ceiling, to the blandly corporate signs that marked every spare inch of wall space.

Crookedly pinned posters fluttered in the slight breeze that Dean had invited in with him, giving the room a sentient energy that was deeply unsettling as the elder Winchester stepped further inwards. Shadows seemed to leer at him as he passed the curved banister, long spindly fingers reaching out towards him with such zealous intensity that Dean thought he could almost feel their chilling touch dancing across his skin.

_What the hell are you doin'?_ He scolded himself. _Keep it together._

Huffing out an encouraging, pep talk of a breath, he switched on the EMF meter.

Nothing.

Not even a flicker.

"Okay...," He muttered out loud, pausing at a T-junction of doorways. "Wasn't expectin' that."

A bright yellow sign on the wall before him 'welcomed' him to Northview Gardens Care Home, with the aid of some poorly depicted daisies and an embarrassingly childish menagerie of woodland creatures. This place had been for adults, hadn't it? Bouncing his eyebrows in mild disbelief, he chose left, another nauseating all singing, all dancing sign informing him that he was making his way towards the 'Oak Grove Lounge'.

Jeez, if he ever made it to old age, he hoped Sam would do the honourable thing and shoot him before he ended up in a place like this.

He shook the EMF slightly, hoping to jar some life into the freakin' thing. But it remained irritatingly silent.

Which was especially inconvenient, because Dean just friggin' knew that something was wrong. Knew it from the tingling goosebumps that blossomed along his exposed skin, from the way the hairs on the back of his neck refused to yield, from the instinctive rigidity of his muscles. Knew it from years of honing his hunting craft.

In the end though, it didn't save him.

There was no warning.

There was no sound. There was no movement.

And when the darkness slammed into him from behind, there was just nothing.

O0o0o

_Couldn't resist a wee cliffhanger...sorry! Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts._


	4. Dazed and Confused

Thank you to everyone who took the time to review, favourite and alert. My appreciation knows no bounds!

Thanks also to the awesome Sharlot for betaing this chapter. You rock! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 4 – Dazed and Confused**

Sam Winchester sighed unobtrusively, fingers absently running back and forth along the sleek edge of the cell phone in his trouser pocket – as he had been for at least the past half hour - ready and waiting for the slightest vibration of an incoming call. His thumb twitched reflexively as he felt a tingle skitter along the back of his hand, and he tensed; waiting.

His frown deepened when nothing happened. Had he imagined it?

"Agent Jagger?" A querulous voice, teetering dangerously on the precipice of hysteria made him startle visibly, and he jerkily withdrew his hand from his pocket as though the phone had burned him.

"Excuse me?" He blinked blankly across at Margaret Wilson, whose distinctly equine features were drawn into an unimpressed glower as she quirked an expectant eyebrow at him. She seemed to realise that he'd failed to register even a threadbare gist of the long and rambling speech she'd just delivered, and in her growing irritation she pulled back her long, flapping lips and bared her teeth at him.

Not entirely certain that he hadn't heard a whinny echoing somewhere external to his own imagination, Sam found himself wondering vaguely whether a handful of sugar lumps would retrieve the rapidly deteriorating interview.

"Did you listen to a word I said?" Ava's mother shook her head with a disdainful flourish. "My daughter is missing. Accused of _murder_ for heaven's sake! And you don't even have the decency to listen to what I'm saying!"

"I'm sorry," Sam leaned forward in his chair – an uncomfortably firm armchair of deep, red velvet that clashed horribly with the pale peach coloured walls of the Wilsons' lounge. And which also – he noted at the back of his mind – clashed horribly with Margaret Wilson's sun-blasted skin, which looked as if it had been cooked under a steady heat until it resembled both the colour and texture of a stewed prune.

Sam had, by virtue of a long-winded and high-pitched narrative, discovered that the Wilsons had been staying at their Florida beach house when they'd heard of their daughter's disappearance. And wasn't it terrible that they'd come all the way back to Chicago to help the local authorities with the search when they'd found out instead that the police were _actually_ looking to arrest her?

The younger Winchester hadn't bothered correcting her impassioned hyperbole, hardly even bothering to feign a sympathetic ear. He'd had other things on his mind.

Still did.

Namely that his stupid, friggin' jerk of a brother wasn't answering his phone. Hadn't done for the past hour and a half.

"Yeah, of course you are," Margaret threw her hands violently into the air, giving Sam a more than eloquent demonstration of exactly where Ava had gotten her penchant for spirited sarcasm.

Sighing once more, and not bothering this time to hide the way it burst explosively out into the still air, Sam found himself giving up. So aware was he of the silent, _not-vibrating_ phone that sat against his thigh that he could barely string a coherent thought together, let alone follow any of Margaret's.

Why hadn't Dean called him back by now? Hell, why hadn't Dean _answered_ in the first place?

He wasn't quite sure if the reason he'd gotten absolutely nothing from his visit to Chicago was because there was nothing to be found, or because he'd been so cripplingly distracted by visions of an escaped Gordon Walker that he hadn't been paying enough attention.

A brief call to the prison in Lafayette before turning up on the Wilsons' doorstep had confirmed that Walker was indeed still being held, that he hadn't somehow been able to escape and kidnap Dean again. Which left the much more unpalatable, and frankly terrifying prospect of some sort of demonic involvement. Only the sheer improbability of the notion had prevented Sam from leaping back into his rented Toyota and testing the limits of its accelerator.

So he'd kept on going, but the fact that he'd still been left with the mystery of his big brother's worrying silence had slowly gnawed away at his control, and his concentration, and his patience. And his willingness to focus on _anything_ else.

At first he'd been irritated; Dean's deliberately vague report of what he'd found from Peoria's old records immediately reigniting the non-committal vibes that the younger Winchester had been battling against since they'd set foot in the city. But at the time he'd been in a hurry to see Ava's sister and hadn't been able to gather the strength to start an argument.

So, when Dean hadn't picked up the first few calls, Sam had left a couple of peeved messages on his big brother's voicemail, making it clear that he expected an immediate call back. He'd even spitefully – _hopefully?_ – wondered if this was Dean's childish idea of payback for days' worth of unanswered calls during his solo mission to Lafayette.

He'd toyed with the idea of leaving an irate message that would tell his big brother exactly what he thought of _that_ course of action, but had wisely refrained, thinking that it would only make Dean even more likely to dodge his calls. And because the words 'pot' and 'kettle' would probably – and justifiably – be hurled back at him.

When after an hour, Dean still hadn't called, the messages began to take on a distinct 'I'm worried but I'm not going to come right out and say it' tone. But as soon as he'd set foot in the Wilsons' lounge, he'd wished he had. If for no other reason than to get his brother to call him back and tell him to stop being such a little girl.

Because his brother just _had_ to be messing with him.

The niggling, anxious thought that Dean always answered his phone on a hunt unless he was physically unable to was barred entry to Sam's consciousness. Or at least, he'd ordered his subconscious bouncers to prevent it from slipping through into party central. But sometime after Margaret Wilson's stage-show production of a greeting, and after being presented with a masterpiece composition of tea, crockery and biscuits, the devious reveller had snuck in through the unguarded back door and had begun dancing up a hell of a storm.

Extricating himself from the Wilsons' house turned out to be an exercise in hostage negotiation; Margaret and her lethally waving arms would let him leave if he promised that the FBI would drop all charges against her daughter (even though there weren't any, but again Sam wasn't bothering to set her straight). Once assurances had been willingly and hastily offered, the young hunter was finally freed.

Dusting away the lingering cobwebs of guilt, Sam strode down the Wilsons' smoothly paved pathway, cell phone glued to his ear and already ringing. The brrrr-ing sound of the connecting call buzzed against his eardrum like a trapped fly as he held his breath, waiting and hoping.

Voicemail had already clicked in by the time he'd made it to his car.

"Dean, where the hell are you, you friggin' jerk! Dammit...you'd better be okay or I am so gonna _kick your ass_!" He ground out desperately after the beep, ending the call and flinging the cell down onto the passenger seat, watching dispassionately as it bounced madly into the foot-well.

And still didn't ring.

o0o0o

It was the sneeze that woke him, blasting from within him with the force of ignited dynamite and reverberating down the length of his body as he jerked reflexively on the hard, unforgiving ground beneath him. Nose itching distractingly, it was several seconds before Dean's consciousness finally caught up, panting and clutching its stomach after the unexpected exertion.

"Ugh," was the extent of the hunter's coherence as he painstakingly pieced together the energy to raise his chin from where it had been scraping harshly against the rough wooden floorboards. He managed a couple of inches before abandoning his mission, grunting his way through a pained wince as his head thudded back against the floor.

The disorientating darkness around him would probably have been solved quite nicely by merely opening his eyes, but Dean hadn't quite reached that stage yet, and was busily contemplating alternative ways of achieving the same end when the back of his head suddenly erupted into a show-stopping jitterbug. Legs were flailing, feet were stamping, the audience were screaming.

Dean would have screamed too, and thrown in a couple of expletives for good measure, if he'd been able to connect his voice with his brain in any meaningful way.

Moaning plaintively, he attempted to raise his left hand to his head in the hope that it would miraculously have developed magical healing powers during his unconsciousness. When it refused to budge, the awareness that he was in fact lying on top of it seemed to fall into his mind like a dropped penny.

Of course it was underneath him, he'd been feeling it digging into the pit of his stomach hadn't he? Well, if he hadn't before, he did _now_.

Ah well.

But wait, he had _another_ hand didn't he? His right hand. That one he could move quite easily. _But not just yet_, he thought vaguely, _gimme a minute_.

A musty smell seemed to weave a winding trail up into the foothills of his nostrils, reacting mightily with the still lingering itchiness and causing another epic geyser of a sneeze. The force this time was enough to send him whipping violently over and onto his back, sending little bouquets of technicolour fireworks streaking across his vision while the dance troupe in his skull continued kicking up their heels in the background.

Coughing slightly, he lifted his now freed hand, moaning once more in frustration as pins and needles anaesthetised the limp appendage and sent it flopping back to the ground like a large piece of rubber tubing. With a small glimmer of triumph that pinged in a cartoon light bulb above his head, he remembered his right hand again, as if it had sprung into existence through thought alone.

He lay still for a few beats, panting involuntarily as the roving dancers in his skull began blazing an energetic trail towards his temples. Pressing the heel of his right hand against his forehead, he moaned in disappointment when it failed to demonstrate the healing touch he'd been hoping for. Cursing at his traitorous left hand, he resigned himself to his fate.

It had to have been one _hell_ of a party, whatever he'd been doing last night. He didn't remember one freakin' thing, but with a hangover this impressive it had to have been good. And since he was apparently lying on a floor somewhere, he obviously hadn't made it back to the motel room. Or maybe he had, and Sam had left him to languish on the floor to teach him a lesson.

Dean shook his head slightly. _Nah_. Sammy wouldn't do that. The kid was such a mother hen that he'd have made sure his big brother had been all nicely and safely tucked up in bed. The drowsy, fond smile that had spread across Dean's lips at the thought of a scenario that had played out all too often suddenly vanished as he realised that Sam probably didn't know where he was.

Damn. He really wasn't relishing the prospect of facing his kid brother's wrath when he eventually staggered home. Even if he thought he could only be killed once, he knew his brother would find some way to bring him back to life and then kill him all over again. Because Sammy was going to friggin' _tear_ him to _shreds_. And Sammy could be damn creative when he wanted to be.

Sammy...

_Wait a sec_, he thought hazily as flashes of reality gave him brief glimpses of a picture he wasn't quite ready to interpret, _this doesn't make sense_.

"Sammy?" He murmured, rusty voice squeaking like an out of tune trumpet in what had suddenly become a sinisterly oppressive silence. Abruptly it occurred to him for the first time that he might not have been merely sleeping off the effects of a night of ubiquitous intoxication.

Eyes flying open at the realisation, he shot upwards, aiming straight for vertical but having to settle for a humiliating half-way when his knees buckled and dropped him unceremoniously back onto his behind. Clutching his throbbing head, he screwed his eyes shut and gasped out a ragged breath.

"Sam?" He called out again, head twisting this way and that as he tried to make sense of surroundings that were pulsing tantalisingly in and out of focus to the beat of his heart.

_Dammit!_ Sam might have been in real trouble, and here _he_ was wasting time getting intimately acquainted with the floor. One more close encounter and he'd have to buy the friggin' thing dinner. He quirked his lips wryly. Just as long as it didn't expect him to put out afterwards.

One deliberate and restorative blink later, and the room began wobbling less like a bouncy castle and more like a ship on choppy waters. Which was reassuring. Kind of.

The room was large and shrouded in shadow, the approaching twilight that Dean could make out through one grubby window if he squinted awkwardly offering little to lighten the gloom. Waiting for the insistent throbbing in his head to subside, the elder Winchester allowed his eyes to drink in his surroundings as his pupils thirstily dilated.

The place looked abandoned; no furniture populated the irregular planes of the floor-space apart from a lone trolley, which sat askew along one of the pale coloured walls. A sudden waft of damp was easily traced to a growing patch of mould spreading along another. The lofty ceiling formed a galaxy above him, peppered with plasterwork constellations and a solar system of hanging lamps. Several doors led from the grand room in different directions, including two peeling French windows that opened out onto an abyss of grass and trees.

What the...?

Glancing around him as smoothly as his pounding head permitted – which in reality entailed a series of tiny, tentative, tiptoeing saccades – Dean felt a chill creep up his spine. His duffel, shotgun and EMF meter were scattered around him like sacrificial offerings. The tools of his trade.

He'd been hunting.

But what, and where, and why? When he reached for the answers there was nothing but a disturbing blankness, a disorientating blind man's bluff.

What the hell had happened? And where the hell was his brother?

His concern for Sam growing in inverse proportion to the number of answers he'd managed to amass, he slowly negotiated the ascent to his feet, sarcastically congratulating himself when he managed to remain upright without faceplanting for all of about five seconds. Take three was more successful, and after a few gentle steps he confidently concluded that walking was a real possibility.

But putting one foot in front of the other turned out not to be the problem, he discovered ruefully as he bent to retrieve his belongings. Sudden changes in altitude were apparently beyond the scope of his newfound balance, and he found himself once more getting up close and personal with the room's dusty floor.

"Oh for the love of...," he grumbled in frustration, cursing his legs for their lack of fortitude. What was wrong with him? Why did his body feel about as responsive as a beanbag doll? Sam was in trouble. Sam _needed_ him. And _he_ needed to pull his crap together and friggin' find his brother. Gripping the shotgun solidly, he levered himself upwards and wobbled forwards on jelly legs. The floorboards heralded his progress with a chorus of creaks and groans that seemed to echo loudly in Dean's skull as he moved.

Reaching the nearest door, his groggy eyes swam up through the gloom to rest on the brightly coloured sign emblazoned across its top, proclaiming him to be in the 'Oak Grove Lounge'. The cursive text was helpfully surrounded by a doodled copse of trees that Dean decided, in his infinite wisdom, were probably oaks.

And that was when it all came flooding back to him.

Or at least, part of it did.

This was Northview Gardens Care Home, it had to be. It made perfect sense for him to have been there, after all. He remembered talking with Fiona Adams, could easily recall thinking that he needed to give the building the once over with his EMF meter.

But he had no memory of how he'd gotten there. Or why he'd blacked out.

At least he knew now that Sam hadn't been with him. His brother was in...Chicago? Yeah. Chicago. Sam was safe. Dean had lied to his brother and had come here alone. At least, he was pretty sure he'd come here of his own accord. He was pretty sure he hadn't been brought here.

Like, ninety percent sure.

The remaining ten percent was what made him keep his shotgun raised at chest level, finger tightened on the trigger.

Tottering through the doorway and out into a shabby looking foyer, keeping close to the wall in case the floor decided it wanted another piece of him, Dean paused by the smoothly carved banister of a stately-looking staircase. Swivelling gingerly in deference to his throbbing head, he allowed his eyes to explore surroundings that felt like uncharted territory. There wasn't a hint of familiarity to the place, every inch felt new and unknown.

The main entrance was a heavily carved mahogany door that might have proved a formidable opponent had it not stood dejectedly ajar, conquered by an unknown foe. Himself? Probably. But that damn ten percent continued to lay the foundations of doubt, and Dean found himself lifting the shotgun higher as he shuffled awkwardly forwards. A gentle breeze prodded at him as he moved, ruffling the feathered posters on the wall and whispering eerily around him as though he was being watched by an invisible audience.

More than once he found himself startling at creaks and groans, nearly overbalancing at a particularly large squeak that seemed to emanate from somewhere upstairs. Inescapably reminded of why he had – most likely – come to the place, Dean nearly diverted to investigate. But for once common sense was manning the controls, and it was telling him (in a voice that sounded suspiciously like 'disapproving Sam') that running off to hunt when he could barely maintain standing balance – when he could barely register anything other than what was in his direct line of sight – was a _very_ bad idea.

He didn't always listen to Sam when the kid tried to dissuade him from going off and doing something monumentally stupid – in fact, such reasonableness was rare – but this time his brother was definitely onto something. And he felt just a little bit guilty for having deceived the younger man earlier (or at least, he was still assuming that he'd lied to his brother). The least he could do was listen to what the kid had to say.

One glance from the open doorway immediately evaporated Dean's ambiguous ten percent, but couldn't erase the frown that cleaved his brow in two. The Impala sat quite contentedly just a few metres away at the head of a grandiosely twisting driveway that had been coated thickly in gravel, waiting patiently for him like a trusty steed.

The fading light seemed strangely to highlight the Chevy's gleaming fenders, her polished paintwork, her quiet grace. She fairly shone in the dusky air, catching the reflected glow of the sinking sun - now only just visible through the mesh of tree branches that lined the driveway.

The knowledge of her presence was as reassuring as it was disconcerting. Clearly he'd driven himself here. But there was a large, gaping hole torn from the tapestry of his memory as he tried to trace its pattern. The facts were all there, unassailable, inexplicable. And yet there was no sense that he could make of it.

Thinking of how he'd woken, an aching iciness began from deep within, seeping gradually outwards until he was shivering slightly in the cool evening air. Now that he knew he'd come here of his own volition, that he'd brought his gun and a bag full of weapons, the knowledge that he'd been unconscious for some unknown length of time was more than a little worrying. And eerie. And creepy.

And _damn_, but Sammy was probably freaking out!

He was suddenly very conscious of the cell phone resting tightly against his thigh in the pocket of his jeans, as if he had magicked it into being. Only some kind of strange sorcery could have caused him to forget about his phone. It ought to have been the first thing he'd checked.

Looking out across the expanse of the driveway, Dean shifted from foot to foot in indecision. He needed to look at his phone, but he'd have preferred to do it from the safety of the Impala. On the other hand, traversing what his beleaguered mind had turned into a distance of football pitch proportions was looking like a task that was well beyond his current capability.

Sighing as common-sense-Sammy again waded into the debate, Dean swallowed down an almost childish groan of protest and after a deep, galvanising breath, set off into the wilderness. The Impala seemed to grow farther away with every step – an effect he'd seen countless times in movies and television shows alike, and which turned out to be surprisingly accurate, poor special effects notwithstanding.

Eventually, after many stumbles and near misses, Dean managed to avoid the unappealing prospect of becoming acquainted with the care home floor's uglier, gravel covered sister. He'd been in that situation before, and it never ended well; _that_ waitress in Tampa coming to mind once more. Sam had never known about the sister, and he never would, because that was one secret that Dean was taking to the grave.

Dean reached the Impala with a grand lurch, a wild leap that had to have cleared at least two metres of ground. Clutching fiercely to the Chevy's roof, he fumbled shakily with the keys before wrenching the door open with its customary screech and plopping down onto the seat with an enthusiasm that temporarily robbed him of an 'ooft' of breath.

Briefly battling his trouser pocket for possession of his cell phone, he emerged victorious, raising it triumphantly before his eyes...only to groan out loud when he registered the number of missed calls. _Ah crap!_ He thought, closing his eyes with the dread of a condemned man. Ever since Burkittsville, Sam had fallen into the extremely annoying habit of working himself into some sort of seizure if his big brother failed to return a phone call within seconds. Not only was it irritatingly like being kept on a leash, but it robbed the elder Winchester of a vital avoidance tactic.

Of course, Dean himself couldn't deny his own worry when _Sam_ went off the grid. But he was the eldest. He was allowed. Getting used to Sammy's protective streak was a war Dean knew he was still waging – and losing spectacularly. There had been a few occasions when the elder hunter had 'forgotten' to pick up the phone, enough to be able to map the extent of his transgression on the Sam Winchester bitchface scale with uncanny accuracy.

Dean heaved a sigh as his mind desperately procrastinated. Five missed calls was pushing the kid's limit, ten was risking a day's worth of huffed silence, fifteen meant he'd be reamed out with a John Winchester-esque diatribe. Twenty was something Dean had never dared to risk. Twenty was boldly going where Dean Winchester had never gone before.

Not to mention the fact that the first call had come through over three hours ago. He'd been out for three freakin' hours? _Crap, crap, crap!_ How the heck was he going to explain away this one? Wincing as if to deflect a coming blow, he dialled his voicemail, holding the phone at a tentative distance from his ear, not at all sure that it wouldn't suddenly burst into flames.

The first message wiped Dean's grimace clean, replacing it with an expression that was as much a mystery to him as his own anonymous cocktail of emotions. The affective concoction continued to slosh around in his head, shaken vigorously by some internal bartender who seemed to play by Sam's rules as the next few messages rolled on. Sampling the mixture, Dean tasted anger as it pooled bitterly at the back of his throat. Who the hell was Sam to sound so friggin' pissed? The subtle tones of hurt were next. Sam hadn't been worried about his big brother when he'd taken off without a word. Dean might have driven the Impala into a ditch for all the kid had known. _Or_ cared.

The final messages though, were all that was needed to temper the acidity of the mixture. The last one spraying a shot of warmth into the cocktail glass, something sweet tasting and unexpected. Something that was encoded deeply into Dean's big brother genetic code. The soul-deep need to comfort his brother, to soothe his distress. _You'd better be okay..._

He'd pressed the speed dial before conscious awareness had time to conduct a risk assessment, the call swiftly connecting after just one ring.

"Dean?" The anxiety that barrelled out from the speaker had the elder hunter again holding the phone at a safe distance from his ear. "What the _hell_, man? Where've you been? Are you okay?"

Dean inhaled slowly, closing his eyes in exasperation as he realised that his haste at calling his brother had come at the expense of a workable explanation. He was so screwed.

"Dean?" The elder Winchester winced as both distress and decibel spiked sharply.

"Hey, Sammy!" It was weak, even to his own ears; a pale imitation of his normal cockiness that wouldn't even have fooled a passing stranger, let alone his own brother.

"What happened?" Straight to the point. Well damn, he was really going to have to come up with something now. And Fast. He paused, waiting for his mind to break his fall. Any time now, it would happen. Any time now he'd have the perfect excuse.

"Dean? Answer me, dammit!"

The elder hunter found himself holding back a growl of frustration. Why the hell wasn't his mind doing anything? It was just sitting there, twiddling its thumbs and rocking back and forth.

"Uh, nothin' Sam. Look man, I'm sorry, I uh...I'm still at the records...place. I fell asleep," He finished lamely, contorting his features in disbelief. Had he really just said that? Yeah. Nice going.

The silence seemed to stretch out like elastic, further and further and further; every second an agony of anticipation as Dean waited for the eventual snap.

"You fell asleep?" Sam repeated with quiet tautness, anger lying dangerously in wait beneath the surface.

"Yeah. I was uh...I was tired," _And the genius keeps on comin'_ Dean taunted himself as he curled his free hand into an infuriated fist.

"Tired?" This time Sam wasn't even bothering to hide his scepticism, and – backed into a corner – Dean came out fists flying.

"What is there, a freakin' echo or somethin'? Yeah, I was _tired_. And I fell _asleep_. Sorry I didn't answer my phone, _mom_!" Screwing his eyes shut in dismay, Dean bit his lip in belated censorship. He hadn't meant to let his irritation slip out.

"Fine, jerk! Go screw yourself! Guess I was stupid enough to–," Sam cut himself off sharply, but the hurt lingered in the airwaves between them like crackling static.

Dean swallowed heavily, berating himself for once again wounding his brother. "To what?" He prodded gently, softening his tone in silent apology.

But Sam wasn't biting, instead forcing out a terse "Nothing. I'll see you back at the motel," before promptly disconnecting the call.

Dean leaned back with a knee-jerk sigh that cracked like a whip in the still air, furiously slamming the phone down onto the passenger seat and watching with idle indifference as it skittered wildly from his grasp and clattered into the foot-well.

Great. Just great.

o0o0o

Sam had counted five hundred steps as **he'd paced out his agitation within the cramped confinement of the motel room**; he'd recited every exorcism rite he knew ten times over; he'd tallied up the number of lime green squiggles he could see on the kaleidoscopic wallpaper; he'd named every town they'd ever visited in alphabetical order. All before the Impala's rumbling engine finally growled across the parking lot.

The younger man had made the three hour drive in two and a half – a rickety, rolling old motor-home holding him up for an unbearable twenty minute stretch – and he'd _still_ made it back to the motel before Dean, with plenty of time to spare. Since their phone call, it shouldn't have taken his brother longer than a half hour to get back, but the parking lot had been worryingly empty of a shiny black muscle car when Sam had pulled in.

Changing course from where he'd been striding in the direction of the bathroom – one of a number of routes he'd devised as the time passed, and he'd had time to be creative – he veered around and aimed instead for the laptop, striving for nonchalance as he heard his brother's footsteps shuffling unevenly towards the door. Sam's brow twitched as he flung himself down into his chair, only just managing to right its backward tipping motion as the door handle turned. The sounds of Dean's arrival had him primed and vigilant – senses straining for the slightest sign of illness or injury.

The dragging footsteps and uncoordinated rattling at the door would have tipped the threshold of the special internal scale that Sam reserved purely for mapping and gauging Dean's condition, even if it _hadn't_ been for his big brother's three hour disappearing act, or for the way Dean had sounded when he'd finally called. The younger Winchester hadn't been able to put his finger on it – as frantic and panicked as he'd been when he'd finally gotten hold of his brother – but he'd had more than enough time since to unpack, to twist, turn, tinker, ruminate..._worry_ over Dean's wavering voice, over the ludicrously flimsy excuse that his brother had to have known he'd never believe.

What the hell was Dean playing at? Where had he been? For Sam was certain that his big brother hadn't merely dozed off through the sheer boredom of having to wade through a few old files. It might have happened once or twice in the past, Dean running out of items to fiddle with or throw at Sam, or exhausting his repertoire of annoying noises and repetitive questions. More than once the younger man had been on the verge of fratricide when the clicks and tuts and blown raspberries had gradually morphed into lightly snuffling snores.

Sam smirked internally as he remembered having fully taken advantage of his brother's stupor on more than one occasion. He'd kept one particularly unflattering picture of Dean, mouth hanging slackly open, nose pressed down against the crumpled pages of whatever irrelevant book he'd picked to flick through while Sam did the _real_ research. The younger man had gently eased it out from underneath his brother's cheek, gingerly replacing it with a children's cartoon 'Let's Talk about Sex' book – complete with pictures – as Dean obliviously slumbered on.

That one had sparked a spectacular prank war.

But Dean was usually a light sleeper, Sam thought, guiltily ignoring how easy it had been to sneak out on him all those days ago. Normally, all the younger Winchester had to do was stub his toe on the way to the bathroom and his big brother would rear from his bed in a frenzy of limbs as if he'd been jabbed in the side with a cattle-prod. No way would he sleep through twenty phone calls. No way.

Which meant that Dean was hiding something. Lying. _Again._

Sam cleared his throat noisily as the elder hunter slowly eased the door open and stepped with affected casualness into the room. "Hey," the younger man grunted sniffily, hiding his flaring concern behind a mask of sulky disapproval. His eyes danced between his brother and the loading laptop screen with a swiftness he hoped Dean wouldn't be alert enough to register.

Figuring that an anxiety-driven offensive would only serve to clam his brother up even further, Sam decided that a surreptitious perusal was his best option. His irritated façade wasn't hard to erect, annoyed as he was that Dean had been untruthful with him yet again. The why of it all evaded him still, and its mystery was niggling portentously at the back of his mind.

"Hey," Dean returned, voice burdened with some unexplained fatigue. He dragged up a hand, showing Sam the greasy-looking takeout bag held in his grasp with a weak smirk that slipped quickly from his lips. "Brought dinner."

Sam tossed back a non-committal grunt, too busy in his examination of his brother's appearance to give full thought to a coherent response. Dean moved with a stiffness that was so at odds to his usual fluidity, the action of walking now a study in concentration. There was a smudge of grime on the elder hunter's chin, covering a slight rawness of irritated skin on his otherwise ashen pallor. Eyes, veiny and bloodshot avoided his gaze with sluggish, drunken movements.

Sam bit his lip, concern slicing right through all attempts at subtlety. "Where were you, Dean? You look like roadkill, man."

Dean closed his eyes briefly, as if searching for the strength to answer. He offered up another smirk, which listed pathetically like a badly pitched tent. Dumping his bag of food on the table with more force than would have been necessary for someone with a thorough control over gravity, he muttered dismissively: "Told you. Went to get dinner." He followed with a vague wave at the food, sinking back into the remaining chair with a groan that would normally have been expertly stifled.

Sam puffed out an exasperated breath, giving up all pretence of interest in the laptop screen in front of him. "I don't mean just now, Dean. I meant for the past four hours!"

Dean hauled a hand up to scrub pointlessly at his crown, and Sam found himself frowning as a twitch of pain momentarily creased his brother's features. "Didn't we have this conversation, Sam?"

"Yeah, we did have that conversation, Dean. I just didn't believe a word you said," Sam leaned back, crossing his arms solidly over his chest. Unyielding. The stern stare he levelled at his brother reinforcing the reprimand.

"What?" Dean groused, utterly unmoved by his little brother's scolding. "I fell asleep, Sam. That's _all_. Was really borin', dude."

Instantly irritated by his brother's suddenly bold, goading smirk, Sam found himself puffing out his chest in indignation. "Great, Dean. That's just...that's _great. _So I guess you lying to me is nothing new." He accused in growing outrage.

"And I guess _you_ bein' a little bitch is nothin' new either!" Dean retorted, contorting his lips bitterly as he curled his hands into loose fists, before abruptly letting them fall slackly back onto his lap. "I'm sorry I didn't answer my friggin' phone, but it was dark in the room and I was tired. End of."

Sam narrowed his eyes, in no way believing his brother's renewed vehemence, but he reluctantly let the matter fall from his grasp. Rallying his troops for angry battle seemed more trouble now than it had earlier in the day – something about losing his brother for several hours had doused the bulk of his ire - and pestering would get him nowhere with Dean in belligerent-mode. Besides, his brother really _did_ look tired.

The elder hunter cleared his throat dramatically, a classic subject-change signal that Sam had learned to read in his brother from a very young age. He decided to allow it, realising with no small amount of frustration that his brother was presenting his 'locked vault' guise.

"So, find anything in Chicago?" Dean enquired impassively.

The younger man pursed his lips and pouted grumpily. "No," He muttered darkly. "I was too busy wondering what kind of crap my stupid jerk of a big brother had managed to get himself into."

Dean rolled his eyes sourly, but didn't rise to Sam's dangling bait.

Sam waited a beat, watching his brother for further reaction. When none was forthcoming, he relented with a disheartened sigh. "I spoke to Ava's sister Kathy. She didn't know anything. Neither did her mom. Whole trip was a bust." He couldn't help the dejection that bled into his tone, couldn't help slumping back disappointedly in his chair.

He glanced over at his brother, unable to prevent himself from expecting words of comfort that were as dependable to him as a safety-line. But Dean merely contemplated him in bland silence, brows twisted slightly in an expression that looked almost confused. Feeling a deep, instinctive sense of unease settle into his bones, Sam leaned forward again, staring more openly at his brother. "Dean, you okay?"

The elder hunter took several moments refocus on Sam as if he'd been gazing at something far into the distance, the whirring in his head as he adjusted his zoom lens almost audible to his rapt brother. He eyed Sam from underneath hooded lids, denying the younger man the opportunity to fully translate whatever deflection he'd decided to opt for. "'M fine!" he exclaimed, shooting his little brother a look that neatly demonstrated his dubious opinion of the intelligence of Sam's concerned question.

Thoroughly unconvinced, Sam gritted his teeth painfully but chose to remain silent. Something strange was going on with his brother, but the clues were coming in frustratingly cryptic glimpses and flashes. He'd have to bide his time, to arrange and place the puzzle pieces as they emerged. Patience was apparently a virtue, and with Dean Winchester for a brother, Sam considered himself its friggin' epitome.

"So...did you find out anything from the records before you, uh, fell asleep?"

"Uh...," Dean was looking blank, his eyes drifting aimlessly from side to side as he bit his lip hesitantly. "Lemme just check. I'm sure I–," He broke off abruptly, hands slithering up to blindly examine the pockets of his jacket. "I musta written it down somewhere."

"How come you need to check? Can't you just tell me?" Sam found irritation pricking against the bubble of concern that had expanded to fill his breast. It was as if his brother had shown nothing but disregard for the task that had been so important to him, like Dean wasn't taking seriously the questions that infested Sam's mind like parasites – feeding from his self-control and swarming his consciousness in droves.

But Dean was shaking his head absently in response, opening his jacket more fully so that he might better plunder its pocketed depths. "No, I uh, there's just..._Dammit_! I can't find it!"

"Dean?"

The elder hunter froze, hand still in his jacket pocket as comprehension dawned slowly across his features. "Oh wait...I remember now." It was as if he'd just recalled the name of whatever waitress had made up his earlier dinner order.

Sam raised his eyebrows expectantly, anticipating something interesting given his brother's theatrical search routine. "And?"

Dean's eyes flickered casually back towards his brother, wafting an unconcerned hand in front of his face as if to disperse a bad smell. "Oh, I didn't find anything. I looked through 'em all, dude. Nothin' there."

"Nothing?" Sam queried, features sharpening angrily at his brother's complete lack of apology. Dean had seemed almost...carefree. There was nothing of the reluctance, the concern, the disapproval of days past. Briefly he wondered if his brother had inhaled something he shouldn't have, before dismissing the idea as ridiculous. He scrubbed a hand through his hair, ignoring the tickling strands as they fell back against his forehead. "Do you have anything to say about what you looked at?"

The elder hunter shrugged flippantly, cocking his head as he reached forward to fiddle with the brown paper handles of the takeout bag that was starting to spill tantalisingly aromatic fumes as it cooled on the table. "Nope."

Sam opened his mouth, intending to censure his brother's tactlessness, but closed it abruptly as the futility of the gesture stayed his words. Suddenly the weight of the day's events dropped down onto his shoulders with a jarring thunk: the morgue; facing up to Ava's family; Dean's missing hours. He wanted to find his voice, wanted to find some middle ground between his concern and his irritation. Something was wrong with Dean, but Sam found himself wondering if his big brother was merely chafing against orders, demands, entreaties that he disagreed with.

Seemingly unaware of his little brother's discomfort, Dean eased a thick, grease-marked package from the takeout bag and unwrapped it to reveal a ramshackle skyscraper of a burger. Sam watched with thinly veiled disgust as the elder hunter opened wide and buried his face into a wall of burger meat and bacon. He shook his head as fondness tussled vigorously with exasperation, eventually reaching for his own meal as he realised the totality of Dean's absorption.

"So...I got a call from Ash on the drive back," Sam offered, deciding not to mention the fact that he'd nearly chewed his friend's face off for the unforgivable crime of _not_ being Dean when he'd answered his phone on the quick-draw from his trouser pocket. "Told me about some abnormal weather patterns he'd picked up over a place called Wataga on the night Ava disappeared. I want to check it out tomorrow. It's only about an hour from here."

Dean pulled his face from his burger, chewing noisily as he considered the younger man's suggestion, his wide mouth giving Sam a much clearer view of mangled burger gore than he would have liked. "You wanna go together?"

Sam paused in his own meal, shooting his brother a baffled glance as he quickly stamped out the small flame of hurt before Dean could catch its scent. His big brother had almost sounded reluctant. A far cry from the badly disguised vulnerability he'd displayed just hours before at the prospect of separation. What the hell was going on?

"Uh, yeah. That a problem?" The younger Winchester challenged carefully, shifting in his chair in order to better meet his brother's gaze.

For a brief moment, Dean looked as if he wanted to say something important. His eyes sparked with the glow of some indefinable zeal, a heat that was palpable even from across the expanse of the table. But a second later, Sam wondered if he'd imagined it, for Dean merely shrugged, raised his sandwich once more and muttered a quick "Nope" that was quickly muffled by burger and bun.

Sam watched him in silence for a few beats, waiting for a punchline that was looking increasingly less likely. He blew out a breath, picked up his own burger and decided not to question his good fortune.

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! Any comments welcome._


	5. About to Crash

It sounds like there were a few issues with the original upload of this chapter, so I've re-posted in the hope that they are now sorted. Thanks to giacinta and Frenzied Warrior for letting me know about the problem.

My sincerest thanks goes to everyone who reviewed, favourited and alerted! And my undying gratitude goes to Sharlot for her awesome beta work! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 5 – About to Crash**

Dean's colouring hadn't improved by morning, Sam decided as he silently inspected his brother from behind his breakfast menu. Oblivious to the scrutiny, the elder hunter continued his conscientious perusal of the diner's ample offerings, tongue absently flicking out between his teeth as he concentrated. Breakfast was a serious business, after all.

Dean had tossed and turned all night. Sam knew that because the constant sighing, tutting and rustling of covers had all but ensured his own sleepless fate. A ragged, fatigue-tinged enquiry about his big brother's well-being had resulted in a garbled grumble that Sam had nevertheless understood as 'I'm fine, Sammy, so leave me the hell alone and go back to sleep'. The reality might have been considerably less civilised than that, but the younger Winchester had decided to stick with his original interpretation. He'd tried to comply with his brother's request in the end, but Dean's agitation had always been infectious.

So, lack of sleep he could blame for the excess baggage that hung underneath Dean's dulled eyes. The continued chalkiness to his skin the younger man was still grappling with, along with the general sluggishness in his movements, and the growing sense of _wrongness _that Sam had been feeling ever since Dean's strange absence the previous day.

A crack of popping gum ricocheted suddenly through Sam's ruminations, startling him into the present. "Hey there, boys. What can I get ya?"

Sam glanced up at their waitress, a petite, hour-glass of a woman with flowing dark hair and deep olive skin. He couldn't keep the fondness from his expression as he watched his brother's face brighten. Yeah, she was definitely Dean's type – being female and lacking in any obvious blemishes. And _he_ wouldn't have turned her down either.

"Hey..." Dean began, pausing to read the woman's name-tag with a clumsy ineptitude that was instantly jarring to the man who'd watched his brother charm countless women with easy confidence. With an awkward, jerky movement, Dean swooped down towards where the white plastic badge was pinned above the waitress' breasts, eyes widening as he suddenly seemed to realise how close he'd gotten. He began back-pedalling hastily. "_Daniela_. That's a...that's a really pretty name." It was lucky that Dean could smile like that, Sam thought, as he watched his brother's normally well-oiled speech crash and burn.

"Italian," Daniela supplied as she returned Dean's A-list grin with her own coquettish one – sadly ruining the effect when she suddenly whirled with carnaptious pique to roar back towards the kitchen: "Oh _shut your face_ Mike! It is _not_!"

The brothers caught themselves raising their eyebrows simultaneously, unable to avoid snorting slightly as they noticed their unintended synchronicity. Sam felt something hot slide comfortingly down his spine at the realisation; he'd forgotten how good it felt to just be _brothers_. To laugh and share moments together.

"Oh, sorry boys!" The waitress gave Dean a playful swat on the shoulder with the back of her hand as she trilled out a high-pitched giggle. "Mike can be such a grouch."

Dean's smile was definitely looking forced this time around. "Yeah, he sounds like a riot."

"Well he's not _that_ bad really–" She broke off abruptly, spinning wildly on the spot before striding with hip-swinging grandiosity back towards the kitchen. "I told you to _shut your freakin' pie hole, jackass!_"

Sam winced. The girl had impressive hearing, he had to give her that. He hadn't picked up anything beyond the sizzle of the fryer and the gentle hum of conversation from the surrounding tables.

He shared a knowing eye-roll with Dean. "Wanna go someplace else?"

"I think so," The elder hunter agreed with a grimace, flashing his fingers to indicate that they'd rise from their seats on the count of three. They could still hear Daniela's strident screech as they scurried from the diner, barely glancing behind them as they made their escape.

Their next choice consisted of a much quieter, less argumentative Mom and Pop café that served them quickly with friendly detachment and a low price tag. And most importantly, without some kind of _One Flew Over the Cuckoos' Nest_ waitress. Watching his brother enthusiastically demolish his breakfast platter from behind a half-foot stack of pancakes, Sam knew Dean would be raving about the place for months afterwards.

Quirking an affectionate smile at his brother's gusto, the younger Winchester found himself wondering whether all Dean had really needed had just been a damn good feed. His brother's appetite had certainly made a grand return the previous night after a vacation of undefined length that Sam had been trying and failing to pinpoint. Guiltily he realised that he'd been so preoccupied with his own..._issues_ that he'd missed his brother's floundering. Pushing aside his regret, he reassured himself that Dean was on the mend. The hearty meal had served to pinken his brother's cheeks to a healthy, rosy hue and to revive the warm glow in his eyes.

Sam was so glad of the change that he couldn't even find the will to clutch on to his irritation from the previous night, and it was with easy camaraderie that they polished off their breakfast and set off towards the village of Wataga – a gentle hour's drive from Peoria that allowed Dean to turn the music up and let the Impala's windows down. He laughed the whole way there, and Sam – despite all his worries, all his fears – couldn't help but join in.

Wataga turned out to be one of a number of small, quaint satellite villages orbiting the larger town of Galesburg. To Sam, it seemed little more than a pinprick of light in the enormous galaxy of farming country that engulfed it. The place grew slowly as the brothers approached; brick-shaped clapboard houses set into dried out plots of yellowing grass gradually laying the foundations of the village before the larger, more elegant municipal structures began to take shape.

Sam leaned an elbow out the passenger side window and gazed out at the passing buildings, listening absently to his brother's tuneless humming in the background. Dean was murdering REO Speedwagon again, and Sam couldn't begin to understand where it was coming from, but it felt damn good to see his big brother losing some of the tension that had held him rigid for so long. The morning sunshine was growing ever higher in the sky, bestowing its generous warmth on Sam's bare skin as his eyes searched his surroundings with habitual keenness.

Ash had told him little beyond the random and out of the blue electrical storm that had descended upon this sleepy village from a seemingly great height. The younger Winchester could easily spot the signs of its assault: eaves splintered like twigs; the jagged teeth of smashed windows; forlorn piles of timber that had once housed lawnmowers and garden tools. Repairs were getting under way for the day as they passed, with small groups of people gathering in clusters around those buildings worst affected.

Sam eyed the village residents as they drove by, wondering at the wisdom of stopping to approach the group rather than continuing with their original plan of visiting the local diner. But Dean had been making noises – or rather his friggin' bottomless pit of a stomach had been bouncing up and down and screaming for attention, not appeased even after the mountainous breakfast platter – about sampling the local 'cuisine'. Sam had patiently attempted to explain how abnormal it was for someone to be hungry a mere hour after filling themselves to the brim, but Dean had insisted that he hadn't eaten enough.

"It wasn't _that_ big, Sammy. You're exaggerating!" Dean had scoffed, shooting him an amused glance that teetered on the edge of exasperation.

"It would've fed a family of four for a week, Dean!" Sam had retorted in disbelief, not quite sure that his brother wasn't deadly serious.

"Shut up, Sam. Was just a couple of sausages, dude!"

"Yeah. And bacon, and hash browns, and eggs _and_ pancakes. Need I go on?"

Dean had looked strange at that last point, brow and lips twitching in sync. Sam hadn't known what to make of it then, and it bothered him still in a way he couldn't quite put a name to. Nevertheless, the younger man hadn't pursued it, and he definitely didn't relish the prospect of dealing with a hungry Dean once his big brother had caught the scent of food. Besides, using the diner technique always seemed less suspicious than going door-to-door.

Weaving their way through a labyrinth of red and white checked tables, the brothers perched themselves onto the row of stools fronting a grey formica counter-top. The diner they'd chosen had looked to be the largest in the village, settled in prime position on the main street and aggressively advertised by several billboards along their route. They'd agreed at breakfast that they'd go in as meteorology students from the University of Illinois, researching the storm's sudden occurrence. With Dean joking that he'd seen enough of the local TV weather girl's 'warm front' to be able to pass himself off as a student of meteorology, Sam had panicked and made the executive decision to ban his brother from uttering a word. The younger hunter himself felt that he'd learned enough about meteorology in his science classes to be able to cobble together something appropriately convincing, knowing that he could speak 'college' more effectively than his brother would ever be able to.

"What'll it be, boys?" Sam shifted his attention to the matronly waitress who was staring haughtily down at them, tapping her notepad impatiently against the palm of her hand in a way that seemed preposterously menacing. _This is gonna be a tough sell_, he couldn't help but think as he noted her spirit-levelled lips and narrowed eyes. The image brought a whole new meaning to the..._aggressive_ advertising.

Sam glanced furtively at Dean, surprised at the blissfully unconcerned expression on his brother's face; the easygoing smile, the playful glint in his eyes. The younger man frowned, fighting the inexplicable urge to place a hand on his brother's arm, fighting the nonsensical urge to make sure that Dean was really there.

"I'll take a _large_ slice of your finest apple pie, sweetheart," Dean drawled languidly, blithely ignoring Sam's disbelieving stare as he smiled up at the rough hewn features of the woman's boulder-shaped face, at the dark frizz that covered her skull like moss.

The younger man dragged his attention from his brother for long enough to hastily order a coffee before resettling his gaze on Dean. The '_something is seriously screwed up'_ vibes he'd been feeling since the previous night returned tenfold as he studied the elder hunter – this man who was his brother, who was _Dean_, but who somehow wasn't. He shook his head slightly. Of course it was Dean. He'd made sure to carry out all the usual tests once his brother had initially fallen asleep. Nevertheless, it was as if Dean's essence had somehow vacated the premises, leaving his face on a random slide show of expressions, phrases and mannerisms. So much for him being on the mend.

Sam startled slightly as a brusque clunk alerted him to the return of their waitress. Noting that Dean had been presented with his slab of pie, he glanced up just in time to wince at the surly delivery of his coffee. Biting his lip as flecks of hot liquid sprayed the back of his hand, he ground out a thanks and reached for a napkin to clean up the mess.

He'd been on the point of introducing himself when Dean wriggled past and beat him to it. "So...Nancy...we were just passin' through when we heard about some of the strange things that have been goin' on here and–"

Realising that his big brother was on the verge of completely blowing their cover before they'd even started, Sam kicked him harshly on the shin, feeling an unpleasant concoction of guilty pleasure when Dean had to stifle a yelp. "Uh, what my, uh, my friend here means is that we're students from Illinois University. We're uh, well we heard about the, uh, the strange storm you guys had here..." Sam began nervously before sputtering out at the heat in Nancy's irritated scowl. He cursed his brother under his breath for making him stutter so stupidly. They'd probably lost all credibility now.

"And?" Nancy grunted, not giving an inch, even after Sam had cast his puppy dog spell.

"Well, we're studying meteorology...you know, _weather_," Sam continued, ignoring Dean's eye roll at his obvious pedantry. "And we wanted to find out a little about what happened. You know, anything strange, or out of the ordinary."

Nancy pursed her lips. "You mean aside from a full-fledged electrical storm that came out of nowhere on a cloudless night and killed three people? I might not know much about _weather_," She sneered disdainfully. "But the _meteorologists_ on the news couldn't find no explanation for it. So I guess you boys can go ahead and knock yourselves out."

Sam stared, open-mouthed at her retreating form.

"Nice goin', Sammy," Dean muttered sloppily around a mouthful of pie.

"Me?" The younger man turned to regard his brother incredulously, almost speechless at the perceived injustice. "Coming from Mister 'we were just passing through'? What happened to the cover we talked about earlier, huh?"

"What cover? That oh, so convincing performance you just gave?" Dean hissed back, lowering his voice as a couple of the diner's other patrons glanced curiously at them. "Actin' never was your strong point, dude. 'Sides, like I'd have agreed to somethin' that lame! I mean, freakin' m-met...metro...meteor...whatever the hell it's called..._weather_ students?"

Sam opened and closed his mouth dumbly as he tried to process his brother's barefaced lie. Finally locating his voice, he struggled to hold back the frustrated scream that waited in readiness on his lips. "What are you talking about? We–" He sucked in an outraged breath. "We've been through this! We were going to be students working on a paper. You were going to keep your trap shut and I was going to do the talking."

"Dude, I got no idea what you're talkin' about," Dean shook his head, looking at Sam with absolute certainty, as if his little brother was spinning him a line with the sole intention of winding him up. Sam clenched his fist, fully considering knocking Dean from his perch when an unfamiliar voice stayed his hand.

"'Scuse me, boys. Couldn't help overhearing your conversation with Nancy, there. You say you were lookin' into that strange storm?" Sam whirled to face grizzled features and a lion's mane of thick, snowy tufts.

"Uh, yeah!" Sam confirmed with a quick nod, eyes lighting up at the prospect of a genuine lead.

"Well, you might want to pay a visit to old Stan Parker. He's staying over at the Cowbell Inn on Mayfield and Elm. His house was flattened in that storm. Might be able to tell you something."

"Thanks, we will. But uh, before we go...did you notice anything strange during the storm?" Sam had a sudden vision of himself clutching desperately at straws, but he pushed on regardless. "Anything unusual at all?"

"Can't say that I did. I was all tucked up in bed when it struck, and by morning it was gone."

"Right. Well, thanks anyway," Sam held back a dismayed sigh. He was thankful for the tip, but he couldn't help feeling that they weren't going to find anything. Ava was still frustratingly missing, and nothing he had done had brought them any closer to finding her. But somehow...somehow that was coming to matter less and less as his concern for Dean correspondingly grew.

As they paid up and left the diner, Sam found himself watching his brother once more. Since when did Dean forget their cover? Since when did his mood shift at the flick of a switch? It had gone far beyond the kind of irritation tactics he'd come to expect from the older man over the years, far beyond Dean's normal level of Neanderthal joking and jerking around. When Sam had left his brother in Peoria the previous day, he'd been fine. He'd been normal. He'd been _Dean_. What the heck had changed over three hours?

Sam intended to find out.

o0o0o

Dean couldn't quite work out what the problem was.

But the unsettled feeling wouldn't leave him. It was always there, simmering in the background, stomping all over the proverbial watched pot by deciding to hit boiling point any time he paid it any attention. So he left it alone for the most part, allowing it to bubble and froth unhindered while he tried to cast all knowledge of it into the realm of his mind's forgotten repository.

And then there was that other thing.

That foggy and hazy thing that was currently making a nuisance of itself at the back of his mind, breaking down walls, knocking mementos from shelves, and smashing windows as it hovered and crackled with electricity. But every time he reached tentatively forwards to prod at it with the curious hands of his consciousness, the cloud seemed to blast outwards with exothermic intensity, scorching him and sending him scurrying helter-skelter towards the shelter of the nearest rock. From his hiding place he'd hear snippets of conversations that stuttered and jumped like bad cassette recordings, he'd see flickering images that shuddered and jerked with silent movie urgency, he'd cringe away from the blasting sonar beams of rippling emotions that singed the hair from his skin as they blew past. He wanted to understand it, wanted to know what he was friggin' _supposed_ to know, what that strange vapour was stealing from him. But his hiding place was safe, it was secure, and if he buried himself down deep enough then it would envelop him reassuringly in glorious nothingness.

He'd existed somewhere in the realm between harsh reality and comforting oblivion for much of the afternoon, bouncing between the two with unpredictable momentum as he'd fought to make sense of what was happening around him. In the moments when he was truly aware of his own reality, he knew that something was very wrong, but he didn't know how he knew, or _how_ it was wrong, or what _it_ even was.

He shot a glance at his brother as they moved in tandem towards the Impala, their shoulders gently brushing in that _accidentally-on-purpose_ way that Dean would never admit to having any part in. Sam was still displaying the same perma-frown he'd been wearing for close to an hour. At least, Dean was pretty sure it had been that long. The furrows on the kid's sharpened, discontented features had been growing thicker and deeper ever since they'd left the greasy truck-stop where they'd had breakfast. So, however long ago that had been...

A brief consultation with his watch appeared to suggest that it was coming up for noon. But that couldn't have been right, because they'd only just had breakfast.

Hadn't they?

Dean could still taste the salty bacon at the back of his throat, could still feel the satisfying warmth that came from the fullness in his belly.

Damn watch must've stopped overnight. That had to be it.

Dean shook his head slightly, holding back a disgruntled groan as he thought about the likelihood of finding a watch battery in...wherever the hell they were. All these backwater towns started to look the same after a while to the weary traveller who had passed through more of them than he cared to admit, or was capable of counting. He wasn't quite sure what this town had done to warrant or deserve his presence, but the past few weeks – who was he kidding? – _years_ had been hell, and he reckoned that no one would grudge him the luxury of a little disorientation.

He snapped his head up as he caught sight of a billboard across the street from the motel they'd just visited – the Cowbell Inn, or whatever it had been called. Friggin' stupid name. Dean couldn't have distinguished it from any of the other motels he'd stayed in over the course of his life but for the large, grinning picture of a cow nailed proudly above the reception office that was somehow sinister in its cheeriness. The place hadn't had any vacancies, and Dean wasn't sure where they were going to find another one.

The billboard he'd spotted wasn't going to give him any clues about that, but it did at least tell him where they were. Wataga apparently had an excellent diner and, spotting the displayed picture of a very fine looking cheeseburger, he almost nudged Sam to alert the kid's attention to the prospect of sampling some of the local fare. But the words died on his lips as soon as he noticed his brother's hung head and shuffling gait – all textbook signs of an impending Sammy sulk.

And Dean couldn't for the life of him work out what his brother was upset about this time. Since they'd started hunting together again, Sam had found all manner of different things to get huffy and irritated about; from fake IDs, to his big brother's music collection, to the lack of hoity-toity cuisine – or whatever French sounding term Sam had smugly used in that pretentious tone that Dean really hated – in the various places they'd stopped. But despite his profound, and often vocal disagreement with the kid's disapproval, Dean found himself being drawn in by his brother's unhappiness with an inevitability that he couldn't have fought against even if he'd wanted to.

"Well, that was a waste of time," Sam spat frustratedly, following his feature presentation with a dramatic sigh and exaggerated hair toss. The kid could be such a freakin' diva sometimes.

Dean quirked a brow as he studied his brother, gauging the kid's stress level against his usual internal reference points. Since when did Sammy get that upset over a fully-booked motel? Ignoring the unsettled feeling that had begun edging towards boiling point in the back of his mind, he patted his brother on the shoulder and tried to infuse his tone with the reassurance that Sam seemed to need. "Yeah. But don't sweat it, Sammy. We'll find someplace else."

Wrong answer. Apparently.

"Huh?" Sam stopped dead, reaching out to halt Dean's forward motion as he turned to regard him in open befuddlement, as if his big brother had somehow erupted into fluent Swahili without realising. "What are you talking about, Dean?"

Suddenly the elder hunter wasn't so sure _what_ exactly he'd been talking about, since it seemed to have been that far off base. Unease filtered up through his barriers again as he started scanning his internal Sam-reading software, searching for glitches in the programming. Since when did he make those kinds of mistakes when it came to his brother? "Uh, you know...we'll keep searchin'. Somethin' will come up, Sammy." He stammered vaguely, hoping he'd score a hit somewhere as he tried to bat aside the instinct to shrink from his brother's piercing eyes. He had a feeling that he was supposed to be hiding something. But the what and the why lay frustratingly beyond his reach. To his relief, Sam seemed mollified at his – well, he wasn't about to call it clarification...at his non-specific platitude, and began moving forward once more. "No. I don't think we're going to find anything here, Dean. The guy didn't see anything. Didn't _know_ anything."

_Guy? What Guy? _

Oh jeez, the guy they'd been there to interview. _That_ guy. Dean remembered him now, the elderly man they'd tracked down at the dilapidated Cowbell Inn motel. Dean was having real trouble placing the man's name, but the elder Winchester couldn't help but smile at the sudden memory of his unexpectedly energetic walker-frame acrobatics. The guy had wielded the thing like a weapon when they'd first arrived, practically whirling it around in his gnarled hands with the precision of a martial arts combatant as he'd screeched out a "Get gone! I don't want no vacuums, or encyclopaedias!" in a high pitched voice that Dean would forever hear as "Hiiiiii-yaaaa!" when he played it back. The elder hunter had been so surprised at the reception that he'd found himself reflexively checking his own gun in reaction to the perceived threat. Once Sam had promptly stepped forward and introduced them both however, the man had carelessly cast aside the walker and had cracked them a crooked grin – false teeth wiggling sickeningly in his sudden enthusiasm – as he'd stepped back to invite them both in.

He'd turned out to be the kind of '_In my day...'_ long-winded storyteller that Dean usually avoided at all cost. Brevity was often the mediator between life and death in the hunting line of work, and Dean had always dreaded the thought that he might miss saving a life because he'd been trapped behind a tea tray and an over-eager witness. It bugged him intensely that he couldn't remember exactly how important the man had been to whatever it was they were looking into, but the experience had been exasperating nonetheless. They'd been treated to a detailed lesson on Wataga's history, a lengthy monologue on the performance of the current Administration (Dean couldn't remember the exact phrase used, but it hadn't been good), and a diatribe about why the internet was the tool of the devil before he'd eventually answered Sam's original question. Something about the weather, Dean thought, but he couldn't quite recall the reason. It probably hadn't been important. He'd have remembered if it _had_.

And anyway, the freakin' weather? If Sam hadn't even made it past small talk 101 then the whole thing had to have been a waste of time.

"Dean?" The elder Winchester blinked himself back into the present as he detected the deep layer of concern in his brother's tone, an anxiety that was already starting to test the boundaries of the kid's usual parameters. Sam's voice had been taking on an ever more irritating kid-glove tone since their father's death, and Dean was still trying to find a way of dealing with it that didn't evolve hissing and spitting.

"Dean!" He looked up to find that Sam had blocked his path and was now reaching out with both hands to grasp his shoulders. It occurred to him then that Sam might have been trying to attract his attention for some time.

The elder hunter took a deep, steadying breath before shoving off his little brother's attempted restraint and continuing forwards. "What, Sam? You look like you're about to strain somethin', dude," He teased out of the corner of his mouth, his light smirk morphing involuntarily into a full-blown grin as they neared the Impala. Sometimes he'd just gaze at her, and marvel that she was his. With the sun's rays bathing her in sparkling, golden light, there was something darkly ethereal about her, like an avenging angel. Like a _badass_ avenging angel.

Sam ignored the evasive jibe, pausing at the passenger side of the Chevy as Dean moved to position at the driver door, halting the elder Winchester abruptly with the kind of softly murmured "Dean" that he'd never been able to ignore. Dean sighed internally, knowing where this was leading. He could have set his watch by it, if the damn thing had had a working battery.

"You okay, man?"

Dean rubbed a hand across his mouth as he searched for an alternative focal point to his brother's face, grinding out a long-suffering "I'm fine," as his eyes granted him a reprieve by latching on to the grinning cow sign. Damn thing was creepy as hell.

In his periphery, Dean noted in disappointment that Sam was looking annoyingly unmoved by his attempt at sincerity, and was instead laying a hand on the Chevy's roof, as if settling in for the long haul. The younger Winchester cleared his throat and agitatedly flexed the fingers that lay atop the smooth metal. "Dean...you forgot the guy's name, like five times. At one point you started talking about vengeful spirits, and then you zoned out for a whole ten minutes," He sighed, but it was more an expression of frustration at Dean's continued deflection tactics than fatigue alone. "What's going on with you?"

It was several seconds before Dean was capable of composing a response. He stood staring across at his brother, hastily throwing up a blank front while inside warning sirens were blaring, people were scurrying around in a panic, smoke was pouring out from malfunctioning engines. The ship was taking on water.

What the...? Had he really...? No! Of course he hadn't. No way.

He could remember the interview as clear as...well, okay he still couldn't recollect the man's name. But Sam was yanking his chain about the rest of it. He _had_ to be. Dean found himself reaching out through the turmoil of his listing consciousness towards the ghostly fog at the back of his mind once more as his courage gathered. The search for answers had been placed back on the agenda in the wake of Sam's revelation, but as he neared the cloud a spark shot out, zapping him painfully and sending him reeling back towards his hideout. Echoes of something _not right_ had been released anew in the chaos, but Dean had shoved himself firmly back beneath his rock. And he wasn't friggin' coming out again.

"That is _not_ how it happened! Just 'cause I couldn't remember Steve's–"

"_Stan's._" Sam pointed out with a precision, bitchface superiority that even his obvious concern couldn't diminish. The inherent _Stanford-ness_ of both inflection and expression flashed out like the red rag to Dean's pawing bull.

"Okay, _Stan's_ name," The elder hunter snapped. "Just 'cause I couldn't remember that stupid old coot's friggin' name...I'm what, goin' crazy now? Is that it?" He clenched his fist, instantly alarmed when he had to resist the urge to pound it furiously against the Impala's roof. He'd only ever laid a hand on her like that once, after grief and anger and guilt and terror had jacked his self-control and taken it for a joyride. The rage he felt now was like a living entity, bucking and rearing within.

"I never said that!" Sam defended forcefully, looking suddenly horror-struck at something he seemed to see on his big brother's face. Dean felt his jaw drop open as he realised the reaction he'd caused, the fear he'd been responsible for. He sobered instantly, lassoing the beast within and wrestling it into submission. Dean heaved a sigh that seemed to drag upwards from the tips of his toes, the loud exhale causing Sam's frown to twist wretchedly. "Then what?" The elder hunter tried to level his voice, throwing his hands wide beseechingly.

Sam swallowed audibly, lowering his eyes for a beat before torpedoing Dean with the intensity in their depths. "I'm just...I'm worried about you, Dean. You're not acting yourself."

Something shifted at that, resonating with the simmering unease that Dean had almost succeeded in banishing. But he felt it now, the rising temperature that was now hurtling towards boiling point. And he didn't want to feel. He didn't want to know anymore. He shifted nervously beneath his rock, burrowing down further into his hiding place until a comforting indifference settled protectively around his shoulders. "I told you. I'm fine." He stated with an affected confidence he knew he didn't feel and yanked open the driver side door with an air of finality. Conversation closed.

Sam took several seconds to join him, but once he did, it was with a careful composure that told Dean in no uncertain terms that his brother was only grudgingly letting the matter drop. But the elder hunter merely chose to accept his victory without question as he brought the Impala to roaring life, ignoring the tiny, needling voice that told him this was far from over. He found that the throaty revving of the Chevy's engine neatly drowned it out, and instantly he was smiling once more as the waves of her energy rose upwards to soothe him, to ground him. And minutes later he'd forgotten the argument, his brother's concern and his own nagging fears.

o0o0o

They were halfway to Peoria when things started to go wrong.

Dean had always felt that driving was like creating the sweetest music, the Impala his orchestral instrument as he effortlessly played out the melody. His fingers shifted on the steering wheel, each nudge, each tender caress an exquisite refrain that melded with his every whim. His boot on the accelerator was the pulsing bass beat, a growling thrum that wove intricately with the harmony, that brought it to life. He was its master, its composer, its conductor. A masterpiece he created without conscious, deliberate thought. His hands moved instinctively to the command of the baton, his feet ebbing and flowing with the tide of the melody. It was the rhythm that formed the soundtrack to his life, the music that fused with his core. He lived it and breathed it.

When the first note chimed out of tune, he felt it strike him. It jarred in his ears, it rang through his heart. He felt the shiver of its grating disharmony tingle sickeningly down his spine.

All of a sudden he was terribly aware of what his hands were doing, of where he'd placed them on the wheel. He could feel the vibration of the accelerator beneath his boot, the pedal now achingly light and unresisting under his incongruously heavy sole. The brake pedal, normally so smooth and graceful was now juddering and halting with the movement of his foot, its innate fluidity becoming somehow forced and uncoordinated.

He couldn't remember ever having had to concentrate so keenly on something that had always been so automatic, so effortless. His fingers grew steadily numb under his inspection, sliding clumsily around the wheel's circumference as he spied an approaching corner. Struggling to marry speed with finesse, he hit the curve at a greater momentum than he'd intended. He hissed in disbelief as the Impala seemed to buck from his direction, slithering and weaving on the asphalt like an enraged serpent. The battle to right the Impala's fishtailing rear flooded his mind, plundering and pillaging its resources as he tried to figure out what to do with his feet, his hands, his eyes.

This couldn't be happening. He _couldn't_ be losing control of his baby.

The Impala veered wildly into the opposite lane, narrowly squeezing past an oncoming car – horn blaring as the driver gesticulated frantically – before lurching back across, tyres screeching as the Impala protested her master's mishandling.

_Sorry, baby!_ Dean apologised silently as he felt her displeasure vibrate through him. He tried desperately to figure out where his hands were, what his feet were doing. It took another distressed shriek from the swerving tyres for the elder hunter to become aware of the fact that he was holding the accelerator pressed flat to the floor. He removed his foot with considerable effort, fighting a sudden upsurge in panic as he flailed blindly for a way to bring the car back under his control.

"Dean?" Sam called out warningly, a slight hysterical edge betraying his own fear.

"I got it!" He bit out tersely as the Chevy finally seemed to right herself – for Dean felt like he'd had little to do with it. Blinking madly, he loosened his death grip on the steering wheel, gritting his teeth as the shaking in his hands refused to subside.

"What the _hell_ was that?" Sam squeaked in alarm, voicing Dean's own consternation as he stared at his big brother in wide-eyed shock from where he had somehow managed to cram himself in the corner between seat and door.

Dean would have brushed the whole fiasco off with a joke, wanted more than anything to be able to dig out some kind of witty rejoinder to defuse the tension of the near miss. "Oh, you know, I just felt like...uh..." He began shakily, petering out hopelessly as his mind failed to fill in the blanks – too busily occupied with the task of keeping the Impala pointing in a straight line.

"What?" Sam questioned breathlessly, no doubt still riding the comedown from his adrenaline high.

"What do you mean, what?" Dean muttered absently, trying to find just the right amount of pressure to place on the gas pedal to keep the Impala from lurching forward spasmodically.

"You just felt like what?" Sam persisted tenaciously, and Dean realised that he'd slipped up, that he hadn't bothered to cover his trail. The kid was on his tail now, hounding him, tracking him. And Sam had learned from the best. John Winchester had been an expert at extracting information, his youngest son an able and talented pupil. Dean had been forced to become ever more resourceful in the task of keeping his brother from cracking his code, had needed to find more subtle forms of camouflage. But this time he was too distracted for even a weak attempt at subterfuge.

"Nothin'," Dean muttered, preoccupied with a more immediate problem. All the dials in front of him had morphed without warning into an unintelligible gibberish between blinks, and the effort of deciphering the strange hieroglyphs became abruptly all-consuming. Dammit, he _knew_ what they meant. He _did_. He just couldn't seem to bring their purpose into focus. Needles were swooping up and down between strangely familiar, yet unknown symbols, and Dean felt himself begin to panic when he realised that he had no idea how to control them.

"Dean. Pull. Over. Now!" Sam demanded authoritatively, lingering anxiety removing the sting from his tone, but not the intrinsic command. The younger Winchester leaned forward in his seat, clutching a hand to his big brother's shoulder as if fearing that Dean would merely ignore him without some level of physical reinforcement.

He could have resisted. Dean could have told his little brother that he was imagining things, could have ordered the kid to go screw himself in the kind of semi-serious, bossy tone he reserved purely for winding Sam up. But he couldn't stay in denial any longer. Something was badly wrong, something he couldn't make excuses for any more. He'd nearly killed them. He'd nearly been responsible for hurting his brother. Again.

"Okay," He agreed sombrely, flapping his hands indecisively before eventually pulling to a juddering halt on the shoulder as the brake pedal folded under the misjudged weight of his foot.

The relief at having stopped, of having relinquished control was almost intoxicating. But beneath the exhilarating, life affirming flow of adrenaline, there was an ache that had settled deep in his heart. A throbbing, spiking mixture of guilt and grief that spread like a virus through his body until his mind was so infected that he thought he might weep. He'd lost her. He'd lost the Impala.

Dean Winchester had suffered many agonising losses in his life, and those few precious things that he hadn't lost, he feared losing with gut-wrenching intensity. He couldn't bear the thought that his pride and joy would become another casualty.

He glanced at Sam, expecting censure but instead seeing a look of surprised triumph, like the kid hadn't anticipated his big brother's easy capitulation. He found himself caught in the surreal gulf between unbearable sadness and the unsettling, yet compelling desire to howl with laughter at his brother's comical expression. When Sam abruptly turned to him, solemnity dampening his eyes, Dean felt the warring emotions slide from his grasp. He watched from the shelter of his rock as they were drawn inexorably towards the ravenous mist and swallowed whole, leaving him with a comforting emptiness that was far more easily managed.

"Dean..." Sam began, biting his lip when the elder hunter held up a palm to forestall him.

"I'm just tired, Sam. 'Bout time you did your share of the drivin' anyway," Dean shot his brother a closed mouth smile and clambered unsteadily from his seat, skilfully managing to avoid witnessing the younger man's indignant reaction. He passed Sam wordlessly as they swapped sides, knowing he was in for an interrogation as soon as they re-entered the car from the grim, purposeful set to his brother's lips.

"Why don't you just drop the act, Dean?" Sam sighed as he eased the Impala from her skewed parking space, unknowingly taunting his big brother with his effortless manoeuvre.

_Here we go_, Dean grumbled to himself. It figured that Sam would wait until he had his brother trapped in the passenger seat, a captive audience. "What act?" He said aloud, leaning his head back and closing his eyes as a wave of fatigue suddenly crashed over him. He knew he didn't have the energy to go a round of heads-up with Sam.

"The patented Dean Winchester 'everything's fine' act. I'm not an idiot–"

"Coulda fooled me," Dean cracked open an eye and muttered under his breath, but miscalculated as his brother caught the words and nailed him with an irritated scowl.

"Just tell me where you really were yesterday, Dean. Did something happen? Why didn't you answer your phone?"

Dean blinked solidly, pulling his eyes fully open so that he could stare out through the windshield to the snaking river of asphalt beyond. He felt his brows bunch as he contemplated the question, allowing them to sharpen further as he sought the answer. This was important. He could sense it. There was some reason he'd kept this from his brother, some vital explanation for why he'd needed to lie to Sam. And yet...he couldn't remember what it was. His pot of unease begun bubbling over in a frenzy; popping and spitting and fizzing as he felt his breathing quicken.

He'd been running an errand for Sam.

The memory dropped into his consciousness out of nowhere, but he grasped onto it with both hands as though it was a lifeline. "I was, uh, I was doin' that thing you asked me to...you _know_ the one!" He turned to throw Sam a hopeful glance, but sagged backwards in dismay as he realised that this titbit of information was not going to be enough to satisfy his relentless brother. "It took ages, dude. I musta just had my cell turned off. Don't be such a freakin' girl."

Sam's jaw clenched tautly in response, his crushing grip on the Impala's wheel turning his knuckles a ghostly white. "Really? 'Cause yesterday you told me that you fell asleep."

Dean froze, busted.

Oh.

Well, maybe he _had_.

"Uh...yeah, that'd...uh, that'd make sense," He nodded with a slight shrug, nearly banging his head off the roof of the car as Sam suddenly slammed the palm of his uninjured hand down full force onto the steering wheel. "Watch it!" Dean growled, feeling the tethered beast within start to stir ominously at his brother's violence towards the Impala. "Touch her like that again and you'll be walkin' back to Peoria!"

"I know you're lying, Dean! And I'm sick of it, man. Just one thing after another. Something's different with you. Something happened to you yesterday, and I can't help you if I don't know what it is!"

"Let me guess, Sam. You wanna help share whatever weight I'm carrying?" Dean parodied the offer Sam had made to him all those days ago in Oregon, feeling his heart harden as he remembered what accepting it had cost him. "You wanna have some soulful heart to heart about what's really goin' on with me? Thing is, Sam...How do I know you're gonna respect me in the morning? That you're not gonna _take off_ in the middle of the night?"

Sam visibly flinched at the bitterness souring his big brother's words, cringing at the stinging slap of their inherent accusation. He took his eyes from the road, looking like he wanted to protest. But the elder hunter was long past the point of listening to any more of the kid's self-righteous excuses, the memory of waking alone in that motel room still as potent as it had ever been. "No. I'm not having this conversation with you right now, Sam," Dean felt his mental barriers crash to a close with an almost physical jerk.

He paused, hastily averting his gaze from Sam's devastated expression – the combined ferocity of guilty anguish and frantic concern in his brother's eyes blazing across the space between them like a solar flare that would blind him if he looked – and raised a finger to punctuate his point. "And if my baby has a mark on her, I'm gonna kick your ass."

He pretended not to hear the hitch in Sam's breath as he shifted bodily towards the passenger window and closed his eyes. Blocking out the world.

Blocking out his brother.

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts..._


	6. Boys Cry Tough

Thanks so much for all your awesome comments on Chapter 5! I'm so grateful to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and alerted this fic.

The amazing Sharlot did all the hard beta work on this chapter, and continues to be in possession of my undying appreciation! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 6 – Boys Cry Tough**

Sam Winchester woke to the crunch of footsteps across the motel room carpet.

He lay in disorientated silence for several beats – sleep gradually loosening its numbing hold as he listened to the rhythmic steps pacing back and forth. It took a full minute for him to remember where he was, to remember why he'd been so amazed that he'd fallen asleep in the first place.

To realise that the person responsible for having woken him was also the person he'd fallen asleep worrying about.

Blearily he prised his eyes open, registering faint surprise when he saw stark rays of daylight streaking into the room from tiny chinks between the closed curtains – it seemed he'd slept longer than he'd expected, or wanted. The pale beams ribbed the room like a strobe, illuminating odd patches of wallpaper and lighting them up so that the floating dust motes glittered in rainbow hues. As his eyes focused in the half-gloom, he began tracking his brother's shadowy form across the room. Dean moved in and out of the rays, his motion jerking in frame-by-frame playback as the bars of light swept across his body.

Dean's tension would have been obvious from the briskness of his gait even if Sam hadn't also picked up on his hunched shoulders and clenched fists. It was easier sometimes to read Dean when he was silent, the younger man thought, biting his lip as his ears pricked towards his brother's stilted breaths. Dean's words could often be the most devious of distractors, decoys to divert attention from where the real problem lay. Of course, the elder Winchester was more than capable of coming out with the most heart-rendingly sincere and eloquent of chick-flick sentiments when Sam least expected it, but much of what he expressed comprised little more than whatever image he wanted to project from day to day – leading Sam to joke that his brother released hot air from both orifices with equal intensity.

Continuing his silent observation, Sam took note of his brother's rumpled clothing and chaotic hair. Dean was a mess. Feeling an almost childlike sense of unrealistic disappointment, the younger Winchester realised that his big brother hadn't somehow, miraculously returned to normal overnight. Worry rose in goosebumps on his skin as he recalled the disastrous events of the previous day.

Dean had been acting increasingly more erratic as the day had worn on, and Sam had found his own nerves becoming more and more frayed at each additional tally of his brother's unusual behaviour. Sam hadn't wanted to consider the possibility that Dean had been experiencing some sort of breakdown, but when his brother's bizarre actions had culminated in their near accident on the return trip from Peoria, he'd had to admit to himself that mere exhaustion and discontent could not be purely to blame.

Sam had seen the instant that Dean had faltered, had watched in dumbfounded paralysis as the older man had struggled for control. He'd felt his heart constrict as his brother had knotted himself up with panic, and had looked on in horror as Dean's tangled limbs had fumbled awkwardly with both steering wheel and pedals. What he'd seen, he hadn't thought possible. Dean losing control of the Impala, his confusion and disorientation...it had been like watching a child fiddling blindly with the controls instead of his expertly proficient brother. But at least Dean had been fighting. If nothing else, Sam had taken solace from that.

And then his big brother had given up. Dean's reaction had been one of calm resignation when Sam had ordered him to pull over, but the young hunter had caught the minute changes his brother probably hadn't even been aware of; the tiniest drop in his shoulders, the slightest sag at the corner of his mouth, the slow blink of defeat. And his heart had delivered him a sucker punch to the gut so painful he'd almost expected to see a bruise when he lifted his shirt.

Sam had wanted Dean to resist when he'd insisted on taking the wheel. Had hoped fervently that his brother would snark and fuss and grouch. And refuse. But Dean had just let him. He'd just agreed and swapped places. Just like that. Without even a half-hearted attempt at a token protest. And Sam had felt a large, jagged mace of dread swinging around like a wrecking ball in the pit of his stomach at the recognition of yet another glaring omen. The Impala was so intertwined with Dean in Sam's mind that the two were almost synonymous. He could hardly have found a greater benchmark for how far his brother's condition had apparently deteriorated.

Fear mingled with anxiety as he reminded himself that he still didn't know what the hell was wrong with Dean. Didn't know if it was some sort of extreme stress response, or something worse. But Dean wasn't talking, and Sam realised that he couldn't blame him.

After Sam's fruitless interrogation in the Impala, after Dean's cutting response – words that guilt had grabbed hold of and magnified into a banging gavel of merciless condemnation – the elder hunter had feigned sleep for the remainder of the journey. Sam had been so unsure of what his brother might do if prodded further that he'd reluctantly decided to let him be. Not to mention the fact that he hadn't felt up to hearing any more home truths – snipes and barbs that were starting to sound far more justified than they had a couple of days ago.

But he hadn't been happy about it.

After enduring an interminable evening of sullenness and sarcasm, Sam had quickly come to the conclusion that getting any more information from his brother was likely to be an exercise in wasted breath. Instead he'd had to satisfy himself with watching and recording his brother's every move, noting trends and marking inconsistencies; a modicum of practical action that had been the only thing keeping the anxiety from turning him into a jittery puddle. The worry had begun to rattle incessantly within him, jangling his nerves and leaving him stewing in a perpetual state of restless edginess.

That Dean hadn't even noticed was not something Sam wanted to dwell on further.

The memory of nearly having lost Dean earlier that year had made so many cameo appearances throughout the evening that Sam had been tempted to take the hint and offer it the starring role. The image of his pale, fragile brother grotesquely wired up to hospital machinery like a porcelain puppet; the unreality of Dean's stillness as he'd lain supine on the bed, holding onto life by a thread. He'd had to watch his brother dwindle, the dispassionate contraptions seeming to steal from him rather than give as Dean had slowly decayed.

Then had come the urgent drone of the flatline as Sam had watched helplessly from the doorway, powerless to stop death from taking his brother away from him. The sound woke him at night still, beeping frantically in his ears until he was nearly groaning in torment. On those nights – as irrational as he knew it was – he'd often move to his brother's bed, testing with the back of his hand for the feel of Dean's smooth, slumbering breaths.

The ringing echoes of what he'd seen and heard and felt during those horrific days had only made him even more determined to watch out for Dean. To keep him safe. And after the devastation of their father's death, he'd realised that Dean needed him more than he'd ever thought possible. He'd seen behind his brother's hard as nails, swaggering, _I-laugh-in-the-face-of-death_ mask in a way he was sure Dean had never intended. But they were closer now, closer than Sam thought they'd ever been. And the younger Winchester had vowed to himself that he wouldn't – couldn't_ –_ lose his brother, that he'd do everything in his power to protect him.

It had been part of what he'd thought he'd been doing when he'd left Dean back in Oregon, but the reasons that had seemed so unquestionable then were starting to look like little more than paltry justifications through the critical eye of hindsight; the integrity of their house of cards structure toppling easily under the gentlest of guilty breezes. All he'd succeeded in doing by abandoning Dean had been putting his brother in greater danger. Even as pissed as he'd been then, how had he _ever_ thought that splitting up had been the right course of action? Hell, they'd been apart for just a few hours yesterday and now Dean was ripping apart at the seams. He'd left his brother alone. Again. He'd been off chasing his destiny. Again.

He'd forgotten what was really important to him. And nothing would ever be worth more to him than his brother.

Sam had followed Dean to bed with a deep and wrenching unease that had him lying stealthily in the darkness, watching his brother until the elder hunter had dropped over into a fitful slumber. He'd been waiting for it all evening, feeling like the shifty teenager that his big brother had always been able to see straight through as he silently schemed. So, to avoid suspicion he'd resolutely ignored the laptop, intending to reach for it as soon as he'd been certain that Dean wouldn't wake and catch him at his illicit research, but it seemed he'd unwittingly fallen asleep instead. He bit his lip in silent chagrin as he mourned the wasted opportunity.

Pulling himself up and shimmying backwards to lean against his headboard, Sam cleared his throat tentatively, hoping to alert Dean to his wakefulness without startling him. After the iciness of the angry fire he'd seen on Dean's face yesterday, he was feeling more than a little reluctant to do anything that might spook the elder hunter. When Dean continued to prowl the room unabated, he called out softly. "Dean? What's going on? You okay?"

Jerking to a halt at the interruption, Dean whirled towards him, raising a hand to emphatically brandish what Sam now recognised as his big brother's cell phone. The younger Winchester shifted against the headboard as he tried to get a clearer view of Dean's twisted features, but the room's dimness withheld it cruelly from his still adjusting eyes. Even without the aid of daylight however, Sam could see the frantic gleam in his brother's gaze as the two men sought each other in the shadows.

"Sam, somethin's wrong!" Dean's answer came out as a throaty whimper, and Sam immediately tensed, utterly thrown by a reaction that was so unlike his brother – or at least, which _had_ been until they'd lost their father all those months ago. He felt a cube of ice slither down his spine with a thrill of alarm, leaving a trail of cold fear in its wake that froze over anew. Hearing the catch in his brother's voice now catapulted him suddenly back to that roadside revelation outside Greenville, after their encounter with Angela the zombie. To Dean's tearful declaration.

_I was dead. And I shoulda stayed dead._

Time and distance had yet to diminish the shock of his brother's words, nor the horror that had stolen his breath as he'd stood uselessly by watching the tears flow down Dean's cheeks, unable to do or say anything to take away his brother's distress. He'd thought of a million things he'd wanted to say after the fact, countless arguments that he could patiently recite to his brother until they were believed. But there had never been a good time. Never _would_ be if Dean had anything to do with it.

He'd never forgotten the way his brother's voice had splintered and collapsed back then, and if Dean was sounding like that again...

"What is it?" He implored as calmly as he could, feeling his heart begin to rev up in his chest as he prepared himself for the news that had seemingly broken his brother afresh. Preparing himself for death, for disaster, for destruction. Who had called? What had happened?

But nothing could have readied him for the reality of Dean's response.

"It's Dad."

Sam took a beat, closed his eyes and ordered himself to wake up. This was no time for his mind to be playing tricks on him, dammit!

When Sam unveiled his eyes again he was dismayed to note that Dean was still standing before him, still clutching the phone, still boring a hole into his eyes. The only difference the younger Winchester could detect was that his brother had cocked his head with a dangerous confusion that told Sam in no uncertain terms that if he didn't give some sort of response in the next few seconds then all hell was about to break loose.

But seriously, what the...?

"Dad?" He parroted uselessly as his mind waved its arms frantically in a 'stall for time' gesture as it begged for space to digest the jumbled recipe of love, hate, resentment, guilt and frenzied grief that made up everything he'd ever thought and felt about John Winchester. He hastily shoved aside the unwanted memory of finding his father collapsed on the hospital room floor, the panic he'd felt then too easily reignited. "What are you...I mean, uh, did his phone ring? Or...or did someone else call? What's going on?" He rasped through suddenly parched lips.

Dean made a derisive face that Sam's newly acclimated vision had no trouble in picking up in technicolour definition. "What do you mean, 'Did his phone ring'? And you're supposed to be the genius of the family, college boy," He grimaced as if his sarcasm was bitter to taste. "I don't _have_ his phone. _He_ has his phone! And he's not pickin' up. _That's _the problem!" The elder hunter exhaled his frustration and whipped into motion once more with a great flap of his arms, the sound of his palms smacking against his thighs cracking tautly through the room.

Sam's jaw fell open like a trapdoor, swinging uselessly on its hinges as he rewound his brother's words. _He's not pickin' up_. No. That wasn't going to do it. He'd need at least three more repeats before he could possibly understand what Dean had been talking about. Because he couldn't have meant...No. He just couldn't.

He felt his entire body shrivel inwards, skin puckering as a light tremor skittered down his body from tip to root. He tried to pick the words apart, eyes haywire and sparking like a cut cable as he closed the doors on the outside world and retreated inside himself for an in camera conference. Petitions were offered, evidence was reviewed, pleas were entered. And still Sam was at a loss as to what judgement he should make.

Dean was talking about their father like...well, like he was _still alive_.

"Dean..." He began apprehensively, but the elder hunter pivoted instantly back towards him, the scraping of boot against sisal carpet startling him into silence.

"Don't even start, Sam!" Dean exploded, taking a heavy step back towards Sam's bed before pausing to shake his head with a disgusted sneer. It was an expression the younger man had rarely – if ever – seen directed towards him by his big brother, and the shock of it muted any protest he might have attempted. "I don't wanna hear any of your whinin'," Dean went on, jabbing the still clutched cell phone in Sam's direction for emphasis. "So newsflash, you and dad aren't seein' eye to eye. I don't give a flyin' crap! Dad told me to call in after five hours. It's been _seven_ and he's not answerin'. I'm worried, Sam."

_Oh, crap. Crap. Crap. Crap. _Sam felt a great tsunami of bile begin to swell at the back of his throat as he struggled to quash the churning uprising in his now rebelling stomach. Eyelids fluttering like hummingbird wings, he clutched his middle and sucked in a breath. This was really bad. This was really, really bad. This was so much _more_ bad than all of the bad, bad things he'd been imagining after he'd first noticed Dean acting strangely.

Dean forgetting a few minor details was cause for concern. Dean forgetting that their father had died, that John had _died to save him_...that was cause to friggin' panic!

"Dean...Dean! You gotta listen to me, okay?" He panted out shakily, utterly clueless about what he should do. Pushing up from his bed he took several calculated steps towards his brother, hands held non-threateningly out at his side as he approached, Dean's alien unpredictability a factor he wasn't prepared to take chances with. "Dad's..." He began roughly, grief constricting his throat as he broke off hesitantly, at a loss as to how he was supposed to do this. To tell his brother all over again that John Winchester was gone. That their father was dead.

"Dad's _what_?" Dean urged impatiently, barging straight through Sam's delicate contemplation and thoroughly obliterating his little brother's noble pursuit of tact.

"He's _dead_, Dean!" Sam burst out in knee-jerk bluntness, catching his breath in horror as he slammed his mouth shut seconds too late. He closed his eyes in an agony of punishing reproach, his lips fluttering manically as he scrabbled to gather together some kind of consolation. "Dean, I'm–"

But the look on his brother's face was like being plunged into Arctic waters. He felt his entire body ache from the shock of the cold as a glacial numbness engulfed him to send sharp, jagged crystals of ice stabbing into his heart. His mind was a frozen tundra, chilled into lifelessness as he recalled the last time he'd seen his brother look like that; as they'd watched their father's body burn.

It was Dean who thawed first, shaking his head with tiny, shuddery quivers of denial. "No," he stated calmly, staring at Sam with total conviction.

Sam gulped, feeling his Adam's apple swelling and squirming in his throat with nervous tension. "Dean, you gotta–"

"No!" This time the negation was more heartfelt, his hand slicing the air in front of him in a sweeping karate chop. "No, he's _not_, Sam! He's just...he's just left his phone somewhere, that's all. He probably just forgot."

Sam felt his heart break all over again. The chipped, cracked, smashed up heart that Dean had painstakingly helped him to put back together and seal up after the devastation of Jessica's murder. The fragile, still healing heart that had split in two after John Winchester's self-sacrificing suicide, and which Dean hadn't been able to fix this time because _his_ heart had been shredded too. "Dean, listen. You have to listen to me, man. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to come out like that, but...don't you remember, Dean? Don't you remember what happened?"

"Sam, shut up! Just. Shut. Up. He is _not_ dead!"

Sam realised he'd pushed too far when defensiveness suddenly became seething, surging rage; the abrupt change in his big brother's stance reaching his awareness too late for him to take avoiding action. He should have expected the slam of Dean's fist against his jaw, ought to have been prepared to throw his hands out to break his fall, should have prevented the startled yelp from escaping his lips.

But he hadn't, and he wasn't and he couldn't.

He toppled like a felled tree, hitting the floor between the two beds with a thump that seemed to shake the Earth. He half expected to hear earthquake sirens wailing in the distance, thought he could almost make out the sounds of people screaming, of masonry collapsing. But there was only a roaring silence that seemed to rush like frothing, crashing rapids in his ears. The outside world wasn't caving in around him, just his own.

He gaped up at his trembling brother in stupefied silence as he raised a hand to the corner of his mouth, unsurprised to see the crimson gleam that clung to his probing fingers. He let out an "ugh" of breath as his jaw began to throb with a deep, bass rumble, as if his brain had needed the sight of blood to clue his body in to the injury. Dean was looking stricken, bottom lip convulsing tormentedly as he took several unsteady steps backwards, his eyes glued to his brother's bleeding wound. "Oh, god...Sammy, I'm sorry. I didn't – I didn't mean...I'm sorry."

Sam flinched back to alertness as he tracked his brother's backward progress, noting the elder hunter's unsettling proximity to the door. "Dean, it's okay. It's _okay_. I'm _fine_!"

But Dean continued mumbling desperate apologies as if the younger man hadn't even spoken, his voice stretching so tightly Sam thought it might snap at any moment. "I'm sorry, Sammy. I'm sorry."

Sam lurched to his feet, annoyed when his body betrayed him by sagging sideways against one of the beds. Dean caught the slip, mouth thinning at the apparent confirmation of the damage he'd done. "Hey, it's nothing, man. Really. I've had worse paper cuts, dude!" Sam aimed for a smile, but missed his target by a mile as his wound stretched open further, sending a fresh globule of blood rolling down and onto his chin. "I'll just add it to the one I already owe you," He joked with a laugh that was more brittle than he'd hoped.

He knew he'd made another mistake when Dean's face imploded.

This time he registered his brother's motion just in time, caught Dean's fleeting glance towards the motel room door, towards the prospect of freedom. The elder hunter was quick, darting past Sam and bolting for the exit before Sam could block him. "Dean, wait! No, no, no, don't do this!" Sam cried out, watching his brother's retreat as if in slow motion. Dean had managed to grasp the handle and wrench it before the younger Winchester had recovered enough to wedge a shoulder between his brother and certain flight, shifting to barricade the exit with the breadth of his chest before Dean could escape.

"Sam, lemme out!" Dean was heaving out fearful, guttural breaths as he recoiled from his little brother, clutching his hands across his chest as if to keep them from hurting the younger man further.

"No," Sam shook his head and exhaled roughly, steely determination setting his shoulders in implicit refusal. There was no way Dean was getting past him.

"Sam...," It was a plea, an entreaty that had been pulled from somewhere buried deep, Sam could tell, but he held his ground.

Dean clenched his jaw, dragging a hand from where it was tangled in the folds of his shirt to scrub his fingers through his ruffled hair in sharp, violent scrapes. "I don't know what's happenin' to me, Sammy. But I can't...I can't control it. I don't wanna hurt you again." The last word erupted into an avalanche of emotion, a gut-wrenching sob that had Dean practically buckling at the knees. Sam sprung forward to catch his brother by the shoulders, aghast at the way Dean was shuddering in his grip. Feeling his big brother's downward motion, Sam allowed him to sink to the floor, guiding him gently until he was resting tensely against the wall, face in hands.

"You won't Dean. You won't. You _didn't_. I'm fine," Sam tried to reassure his brother as soothingly as he could, while inside his own head was reeling and wobbling from the dizziness of Dean's rapid fire mood swings. Worry, then denial, then rage, then...the kind of full on, wracking sobs he hadn't seen his brother let out since Dean had hit the age of ten. Sam's beleaguered mind was shooing him briskly away, telling him to go on ahead, it would only slow him down.

"He's not dead, Sammy," Dean snuffled wetly against Sam's shirt as he lifted his head from his hands and allowed it to fall sideways to rest upon his little brother's shoulder. "He's not."

Sam felt tears begin to well up in his own eyes, rising in a great bubble of sorrow that teased threateningly at the corners of his vision. He had no words. Nothing that could make it right. Nothing that could ease his brother's pain.

So Sam gently laid his arm around Dean's shoulders and clutched the older man as close as the plaster cast encasing his wrist would allow, holding and buttressing his brother as he wept.

o0o0o

Even asleep, the deep fissure in Dean's forehead refused to flatten out; brows strung taut as his eyeballs bopped and bounced to some internal beat beneath his fluttering lids.

Sam sat on the opposite bed, clasped hands slung low between bent knees as he leaned forward to get a better view of his brother. His sighs hung heavy in the air, clogging the room with a sweltering despondency. One knee sprung up and down tensely as he traced his eyes along the outline of Dean's slumbering form.

He didn't know how long they'd sat by the doorway, Dean sniffling softly and Sam murmuring soothingly; he'd been too preoccupied to keep track. But by the time Dean had hiccuped himself into a vacant stupor – head nestling snugly against Sam's shoulder in a way that made the younger man ache with the primal need to keep him from harm – the sun had been sizzling merrily in the apex of the sky, turning it a refreshing azure blue that the younger Winchester could just make out through a stray gap in the curtains if he contorted his neck. When he'd felt his brother begin to settle, when Dean had relaxed his rigid muscles and finally slumped against Sam with a small "huh" of breath, the younger man had adjusted his grip around Dean's middle and hoisted him upwards. The elder hunter had been less than helpful during the trek across the room, Sam bearing the burden of both weight and navigation. He'd settled Dean on what would have been _his_ usual bed; the one furthest from the door. His big brother would have complained vociferously if he'd been anywhere in the region of conscious, but he wasn't. And Sam was feeling protective.

Sam scrubbed a hand down his face, digging thumb and forefinger deep into his eye sockets in the hope of erasing the image of Dean's devastated expression. He'd just forced his brother to relive their father's death. Had just blurted it out like an insensitive jerk. It seemed that Dean was destined to be the world's punching bag, while he, Sam, was apparently destined to be the one to do the pummelling. Among other things. But he wasn't going there right now.

The young hunter snapped open his eyes as he heard Dean shift on the bed, preparing to hover anxiously like the mother hen Dean – in that strangely comforting tone of fond exasperation – was always accusing him of being. But the elder Winchester merely smacked his lips sleepily and let out a soft grunt before snuggling down more deeply until he was nearly submerged in pillow. It was exactly the kind of ridiculously adorable gesture that Sam normally found hilarious, and usually recorded for humiliating posterity on his cell phone. But Sam didn't feel like laughing this time, the memory of having held his grieving brother still too fresh. He didn't want to keep seeing Dean's tear-streaked face, didn't want to keep hearing the shuddering hitch to his brother's breaths, didn't want to keep feeling the grumbling throb in his own injured jaw. But they continued to haunt his senses, playing the loop-tape of sensations over and over as he tried to fit the triangle of Dean's reaction into the square-shaped hole that endured, unchanging in Sam's mind.

He couldn't reconcile such an open display of emotion with his normally stoical brother – despite the roadside revelation all those months ago. Even then Dean's tears had been...dignified, pulling off an expression of sadness that was somehow reserved, that was yet holding back. This time his big brother had sobbed with an abandon Sam had never imagined, never expected, and never wanted to witness ever again.

Sam mashed his eyelids closed, grinding his teeth in frustration at his inability to figure out what was wrong, what had caused this. He doubted that Dean would be in any position to tell him. Heck, he wasn't sure now if Dean would even _remember_. If anything had indeed happened – and Sam was becoming certain that something _had –_ how was he supposed to help his brother when he didn't even know where to start?

When Dean's cell suddenly blared out into the heavy silence, Sam started with a jolt, his heart stiffening and clutching its chest in shock. Sucking in a lungful of air he lunged from the bed in a tumble of cumbersome limbs, scanning the floor frantically for where the phone had been dropped during their journey across the room, fearful of disturbing his resting brother. Finally locating the buzzing phone scudding slowly across a sunlit patch of carpet near the doorway as the vibrations insistently nudged it onwards, he dove on top of it as though leaping for a touchdown and snatched it up.

Sneaking a cursory glance at his big brother to check that he hadn't wakened at the commotion, Sam flicked open the phone and hurriedly ducked outside, blinking owlishly in the sun's harsh brightness. "Yeah?" He barked tersely, closing the motel door and taking several willowy strides towards the parking lot, turning to make sure he kept their room in his line of sight.

"Oh! Uh, hi...is this Dean?" A breathy, high-pitched voice tickled at his ear, quavering on the verge of a flirty giggle. Sam withheld a long-suffering sigh, biting back the curse that had leapt readily to his lips. One of his brother's conquests no doubt, a random girl that Dean probably wouldn't have remembered giving his number to even he _hadn't_ been exhibiting abnormal amnesia. He almost hung up without responding, was starting to depress the call end button when some indefinable sense of foreboding took hold. Something told him that this was important. The hint of a fresh lead dangling before his nostrils, Sam tried to make his voice as friendly as possible. "No, this is his brother, Sam. Dean's a little busy right now. Can I ask what this is about?"

"Oh, well, my name's Polly Owens. Maybe he mentioned me?" The uncertain question trilled straight into a piercing giggle. Yep. As expected. The sound conjured up images of the usual perfectly manicured airheads with oompa-loompa tans that Dean normally ate for breakfast. And damn, but that last one was a mental picture Sam wished he hadn't generated. At the hunter's insensitive silence, Polly let out a soft sound of disappointment. "Oh, okay. I'm sure he's just been busy with his article."

_With his what? _Sam felt his attention sharpen. He lifted his chin and narrowed his eyes, as if his commanding expression would carry through the speakers and compel the girl to tell him what he wanted to know. "Oh, uh, yeah. That's Dean. Really dedicated to the job," Sam hid the frowning sarcasm from his voice, easily slipping into enticing interviewer mode. What the _hell_ had his brother been doing? Aside from flirting with random women. But that one was a given.

"You must be so proud. You know, Dean working for the _Tribune_ and all!"

_Get to the friggin' point!_ Sam grouched internally, but aloud he infused his tone with as much enthusiasm as he could muster. "Oh, sure! But you know, he's just been so busy lately that I can't keep track of what he's been working on. Why don't you tell me a little about why he was interviewing you and I can pass on the message."

"Oh, it wasn't _me_, silly! He was interviewing my boss Doctor Phelps. I'm his secretary. Dean said he was doing an article for the _Tribune_ on all those terrible dementia cases we've been having here at St. John's. Said he'd do a feature on Doctor Phelps, which is so nice of him! Don't you think? Anyway, Dean asked me to call him if we had any more cases turning up, so this is _me_..._calling_! Howard Mason was admitted this morning. He's a postal worker over in West Peoria. I thought Dean might want to come speak to him."

Son. Of. A._ Bitch!_

And then it all made sense. Dammit, he should have _known_ from the instant Dean had brought it up. He should never have believed that Dean would just drop it. He knew what his brother was like. Dean with his friggin' knight in shining armour, hero complex. Why hadn't Sam realised, why hadn't he guessed? And jeez, now it was so friggin' obvious! Even after Sam had begged the elder hunter to leave it alone, after Dean had promised that he'd make the search for Ava his priority – that he'd have his little brother's back...No. Apparently Sam's devious big brother had taken it upon himself to work another hunt behind Sam's back. Had lied to his little brother in so many ways.

And had managed to get himself in trouble.

_Dean, you _stupid _sonofabitch!_ _What the hell did you do?_

"Uh, yeah. O-of course. I'll–I'll pass that on. Thanks." Sam stammered distractedly as his mind began computing this new data, scrolling at lightning speed through the convoluted algorithms and equations of his brother's utter stupidity. But there were too many variables for a viable solution, too many unknown quantities.

_Dammit, Dean!_

"Tell him I'm free–" Sam cut Polly off dispassionately, instantly forgetting her as he flicked the phone closed and began clenching it so intensely in his fist that it nearly cracked under his furious pressure. He almost wished it was Dean's neck beneath his fingers instead, the desire to throttle his duplicitous big brother temporarily overriding all other thought.

But it wasn't really Dean that he was angry at, he reminded himself. Well, not entirely. He knew he'd have to take the burden of blame for not registering the fact that his brother's surrender had been too friggin' easy. He'd asked Dean not to be _Dean_, had tried to mould his brother into the person he'd needed him to be. He ought to have read the signs of Dean's concealment, should have trusted his instincts. But he hadn't, because they'd failed him so spectacularly before. Dean had been keeping secrets from him for months and he hadn't seen it. What was a couple of days compared to that? Nevertheless, as soon as Dean had started acting strangely, after he'd _disappeared_, Sam ought to have put the pieces together. It was inexcusable that he hadn't.

Because now his brother might have just days to live if Sam didn't find a way to save him.

Returning swiftly to the motel room, the younger Winchester made a beeline for his brother's duffel – sitting forlornly outside the bathroom where Dean had carelessly tossed it the previous night as he'd grumpily headed for the shower. Sam shot his brother a guilty glance loaded with silent apology as he hauled the bag over to the free bed, unzipping it with businesslike calm before unceremoniously tipping out its contents. No matter what way he looked at it, this was a violation. But he had no choice.

Wishing fervently for a pair of surgical gloves and some hand sanitiser, he began rifling through the pile of mouldy shirts, mysteriously stained jeans and pungent socks that were almost certainly growing a new strain of toxic bacteria. Eventually, after much grimacing and nose wrinkling, Sam pulled out his brother's notebook, holding it gingerly between thumb and forefinger as though it might bite him.

He didn't know exactly what Dean kept in there, hoped it was purely hunt-related, beamed his brother another telepathic apology in case it wasn't. He moved to the table and sat down to read, Dean's brisk script telling him a story he didn't want to hear but forced himself to learn. He frowned as he took in the details of the elder hunter's visit to the hospital, Dean's economical words betraying nothing of the horror Sam knew he must have felt at the sight of the affected inpatients. It seemed his brother was just as reserved with himself as he was with everyone else. Even for his own eyes Dean clearly couldn't express the depths of his own feelings. But Sam could remember what he'd seen in his brother's expression that day. And then he'd gone and left him alone.

_Stupid, stupid, stupid!_

The account of his big brother's interview with Fiona Adams was just as blunt; facts and little else. But Sam easily read between the pragmatic lines. Dean had been more upset by the plight of these people than he would ever let on, his concern fairly oozing from the dog-eared pages. His big brother had a marshmallow of a heart, and as Sam read on, he realised there was no way Dean could have let this go. If Dean had only come to him with this, if he'd only shared...Sam would've...Heck, who was he trying to kid? He would have shut him down. Would have been pissed, betrayed, frustrated. There was no point trying to deny it to himself. And now, seeing what his brother was going through, he realised that he'd been very, very wrong.

Sam easily followed his brother's sensible logic to the conclusion of a vengeful spirit. The abuse, the likelihood of foul play, the fact that the initial victims had all been involved. It all fitted. The younger Winchester had been surprised to find that Dean hadn't checked into the background of the most recent victims, but had admitted with a rueful grimace that his big brother had probably thought he'd be able to wrap up the hunt nice and quickly. He'd clearly substituted detail for brevity. _And why the hell would he have needed to do that? _Sam sarcastically berated himself. Dean had been ill-prepared for this hunt, and while Sam was usually there to keep his brother from recklessly throwing himself into the line of unknown fire, this time he'd failed.

Dean's notes went on to query the value of checking out the abandoned care home – based on the flimsy conclusion that a potentially haunted object might be uncovered there – and when Sam found the following page blank, the significance of his brother's three hour disappearance suddenly moved from worrying uncertainty to chilling clarity. There were no further entries. No stray words, thoughts, findings. And yet, Dean had to have gone there. It made perfect sense. But what had happened to him? Had something jumped him? Hurt him?

The younger Winchester felt his hands curl into angry fists, felt his jaw tighten grimly as his teeth bared into a silent growl. Whoever, _whatever_ had dared to attack his big brother...they wouldn't stand a chance. 

o0o0o

It was late in the afternoon when Sam rolled the Impala back into the motel parking lot, the sun glowing a warm, burnished gold as it sauntered towards the horizon. The chipped, scabby render that coated the motel walls seemed even more starkly decrepit against the richness of the light, and Sam found himself wondering for the umpteenth time where his brother found these crapholes. Found himself wishing for the umpteenth time that this was not his life; _their_ life.

Easing the Chevy towards their room until it came to rest just shy of the curb – he didn't dare park with anything other than painstaking care when he was in possession of Dean's baby – Sam allowed his head to fall backwards against his seat. It was the only outward gesture of defeat he was going to grant himself. Dean couldn't afford for him to wallow in his own uselessness.

To say that his exploration of the derelict care home had been futile would have been to give it a compliment it didn't deserve. He'd irresponsibly spent two of his precious hours – hours that were now forming the measure of Dean's lifespan – combing through the detritus of flaking wallpaper and decaying floorboards, looking for anything that might excite his decidedly lacklustre EMF meter. But the tool had been disdainfully indifferent to every inch that Sam had scanned, to every object he'd encountered (and there had been few) and to every creak and wheeze that the asthmatic old building seemed to aspirate at the slightest whiff of a breeze.

He'd arrived to find a formidable coil of thick, sturdy chains lying defeated on the care home doorstep, a closer examination of the padlock revealing the most minute of scratches. For all his brother excelled at picking locks, there was always just one mark he could never avoid making. Almost like a signature. Dean had definitely been the victor here.

Through the mist of dust and mould in the foyer he'd seen the tell tale scuffs of past footfalls, a trail leading beyond a sweeping staircase and into the shadowy depths of the building. Certain they were Dean's, he'd followed them to what had once been a lounge area. There they'd stopped, and Sam began to wonder if his brother had actually turned and left without even exploring. It had utterly baffled him. As had the fact that there were layers of dust and decay on the staircase that surely hadn't been disturbed. It didn't look like his brother had even made it upstairs.

_What had happened there?_

He'd explored the rest of the building realising that it probably wouldn't get him far, but he hadn't wanted to miss anything, no matter how small. Well, he didn't have to worry about that. There had been nothing to miss.

And to make matters worse, he'd had considerable trouble concentrating on anything other than the fact that Dean was still back at the motel, vulnerable and defenceless as he slept on. He'd kept imagining his grieving brother waking to an empty room, abandoned and lonely as he had done all those days ago. Only the knowledge that he was trying to save his brother had kept him from racing back to the motel like a skittish new mother separated from her child.

He'd been deeply reluctant to leave his brother behind, but he hadn't known what else to do. As unpredictable and volatile as Dean was being, Sam had realised that it would be safer if he carried on his investigation without bringing his brother into it. That _Dean_ would be safer. Walking away from his big brother had tugged at him with a physical pang, as though the thread of his heart was attached to Dean, unravelling with every step he took. He'd tried wakening his big brother before turning away, calling him softly, nudging his shoulder. The elder Winchester hadn't roused once, had continued to snooze obliviously into his pillow, looking so friggin' young that Sam hadn't been able to resist the urge to ruffle a hand through his spiky hair. Once he'd reassured himself that Dean was merely _asleep_ and not something worse – and unlikely to wake any time soon – he'd finally managed to tear himself away. That he was leaving his brother again while he slept was a fact that hadn't been lost on him, and the guilt had been potent. But this time he was doing it for Dean, and only Dean. He'd felt better after leaving a note on the nightstand beside his brother's bed – feeling that he was at least doing it _right_ this time; a note clearly stipulating that Dean was to friggin' _call him_ if he woke up before his little brother's return. Cell phone handily provided alongside.

There had been no call, so Sam was expecting to find a still zonked out Dean when he re-entered the motel room. He allowed himself an indulgent sigh of relief at the thought that his brother wouldn't know of his absence. But that brief expression of consolation was easily crushed by the weight of the worry that had been rolling like an enormous snowball through the wintry fear that blanketed his consciousness, gathering both mass and momentum as it moved. It promised an avalanche of impressive proportions unless he found a way to stop it.

Clearing his throat noisily, he tried to blast away the frigid, terrifying 'what ifs' and levered himself from the Impala, feeling a newfound strength at the thought that he'd soon see his brother safe and whole before his eyes. He quickly locked the car and pulled out the motel room key, jangling it nervously in his hand as he strode forwards.

The key fell from his grip as soon as he saw the half-open door, its metallic clatter going unnoticed as he began edging warily to the doorway, hand reaching for the gun tucked securely into his waistband. _No, no, no!_ He chanted under his breath, toeing the door fully open with his left boot before swinging into the room, gun raised and ready.

He didn't know if the empty room was a disappointment or a relief. Compared to the horrors he'd been imagining, he'd have gone with the latter. But then there was the inescapable fact that an empty room meant no Dean.

No Dean. Dean had _gone._

Dean, who had been safely ensconced in his bed when Sam had left. When he'd friggin' _left_.

"Dammit!" Sam muttered shakily, bottom lip twitching as his panic began to take root and sprout. He holstered his gun and swept both hands agitatedly through his hair, blinking rapidly as his lungs struggled to cope with the sudden increase in demand for oxygen. Pivoting, he pulled out his cell phone and jammed his thumb down onto the speed dial.

And nearly jumped when Dean's ringtone erupted into life just several feet away.

Cursing vehemently he turned back towards the nightstand, where...yep, there it was. Along with the evidently untouched note that he should have immediately caught sight of when he'd done his first visual sweep of the room. He cancelled the call and hissed out a frustrated breath that seemed even harsher in the renewed silence.

His brother was missing. But had he left of his own free will...or had something, some_one_ taken him?

"Dean...man, where are you?"

o0o0o

_Ooops! Another cliffie...sorry! Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear if you enjoyed..._


	7. Hell or High Water

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, alerted and favourited. You all continue to amaze me with your kindness!

Thanks also to the wonderful Sharlot for working her beta magic on this chapter! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 7 – Hell or High Water**

Dean Winchester woke with a gasping flinch; a jolting tremor that seemed to jerk his whole body, as if someone had reached into his mind to wrench him, kicking and screaming back to reality. His eyes flew open, unprepared pupils squinting blurrily into the dimness as they scrambled to meet their unexpected curtain call.

From the vague shapes he could make out, it looked like he was in the motel...yeah...definitely the motel. Even aside from the unappetising visual buffet on offer, their usual standard of 'accommodation' tended to exude a customary smell of stale mustiness that never changed, regardless of how many they visited or how long they stayed. Strangely though, the knowledge did nothing to reassure him, despite the fact that he'd woken like this hundreds of times in his life. Hell, it was practically his default routine. Something was wrong, but the feeling existed somewhere in the unformed distance; like the proverbial monster lurking menacingly in the shadows of over-active imaginations. Except...well, they were real. So maybe...maybe something _was_ wrong.

Breathing heavily as his heart started to poke uneasily at him, he patted the surface beneath him. Yep, definitely a bed. Nothing unusual or worrying about that. Although calling it a bed would have been generous. Dean found himself thinking more along the lines of 'a chunk of concrete covered over by a layer of tarp'. But that would probably have been generous too.

Closing his eyes and allowing his head to drop back down onto his pillow he baited his mind's hook, hoping for a bite from whatever had woken him so abruptly, from the skulking beast that was beginning to set his teeth on edge. He didn't _think_ he'd had a nightmare. No. He saw nothing, remembered nothing. And he never forgot his nightmares, not a single one. The vivid, flashbulb visions that attacked and tormented his dreams were always branded indelibly onto his brain as soon as he woke, playing in full cinematic gore before his eyes; blood weeping from great gashes in his flesh...his own pleading, anguished screams...agony as his body was ripped apart from the inside...a dark haired girl with yellow eyes...an explosion..._your brother's fair game_...

"Sam?" Dean ground out, eyes snapping open once more as the monster suddenly lunged from the shadows with a great snarl and slashing of claws. He choked on a half-filled breath as anxiety began shredding his insides in a blinding frenzy. "Sam?" Louder this time, the raw fear audible even to himself. He began frantically scanning and tagging his surroundings. Empty bed. Laptop abandoned on the table. Bathroom door open, light off. Dean wouldn't have needed a beautiful mind to work out the answer to _this_ equation.

No Sam.

And then it hit him, a full force, slamming realisation that swooped down from above and whacked him over the head so violently that he physically recoiled; Sam was in trouble. _Sammy_ was hurt. Missing. And it was all his fault. _All_ his fault. He'd failed.

His eyes flitted unseeingly from side to side as he tried to piece together what had happened. There had been darkness, a growl...roar, something like that..._Dean! _

The echoing memory of his brother desperately screaming his name sent him reeling upwards with an urgent burst of energy, his body instinctively responding to the call for help with Pavlovian certainty before his mind had finished making the connection. But the premature change in altitude had him overbalancing sharply, arms battling against his downward motion in large, wind-milling sweeps. He dropped back onto the mattress as gravity won out, yelping in pain as his head collided solidly with the headboard.

"Son of a..." He groaned as he dazedly began to pick himself up again, hand automatically reaching for the back of his head to assess the damage. No blood, always a plus. But one hell of a knot was tightening and coiling beneath his probing fingers. Awesome.

But that was nothing compared to the panic that was now stealing his attention. The examination of his blood-free fingers had given rise to an accidental glance at his watch. Which had told him that it was nearing three in the afternoon. Three in the afternoon...

_Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap!_ How long had he slept? How long had...How long had Sammy been out there - god only knew _what_ happening to him – while Dean had been lying there enjoying his freakin' beauty sleep?

Guilt stabbed a sharp knife into his side in time to the frequency of the throbbing transmitter of pain broadcasting in his head. _I'm sorry, Sammy!_ He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He'd only meant to rest his eyes for the briefest of seconds, to try to replenish the energy and spirit that four days of constant, fruitless searching had torn from him. And god...but he hadn't gotten any closer to finding his little brother. The person he'd sworn to protect with everything he had. He was useless, a total and complete failure. And his brother was going to pay the price for his incompetence.

No, Dammit! It wasn't over yet. Sam was out there, waiting from him, _depending_ on him. His brother needed him. And _he_ needed to stow his crap and get the hell on with his search. He was going to find Sam come hell or high water.

Crushing his eyes closed and grimacing tightly, he forced away the pain in his head, stamping it down between the cracks in his composure, salting it and burning it. With a triumphant whoosh of breath he pushed upwards once more – using the headboard for leverage this time – and swayed frailly for a few preparatory seconds before attempting several tentative steps. Wobbling like a tightrope walker, he eased one foot in front of the other, focusing his gaze straight ahead. Towards the door, and Sam. The sloshing in his brain levelled out after a few steady breaths, choppy waters turning calmer as he reassured himself that walking was within the realm of possibility.

He saw little of the room around him; he had no need for such extraneous detail as his eyes latched onto the closed door in front of him and held tight. He knew nothing else beyond his goal of getting to his brother. And the only way he was going to find Sammy was if he exited through _that door_. The outline of the portal seemed bathed in light, rays of silky gold stretching out into the shadows, a beacon guiding him on his way.

He barely felt the needle pricks of the scratchy sisal carpet on the soles of his stocking covered feet as he weaved towards his target, didn't think to snag his jacket from where it was casually crumpled over the back of the nearest wooden chair, didn't realise that his cell phone was not in his jeans pocket – that it was, in fact, sitting on the nightstand behind him. No. Getting on his way was all that mattered. He'd wasted enough time already.

Sam needed him. He had to find Sam.

When he reached his destination, the whole world tilted; the ground, the walls, everything slanting at a gradient that seemed impossible for brain to reconcile with body. His fingers brushed against the interior door lock, and he heard it click as he fumbled for the door handle, pitifully misjudging its new angle and instead cracking a knuckle against the hard wooden frame. "Dammit!" He spat in outrage, clenching the abused fist and preparing to slam it into the door in retaliation. He'd show that friggin' piece of friggin' wood...

But Sam! Sam was waiting for him. He had to save Sam. There was no time for standing around, arguing with a _door_. And that had to have been the weirdest conversation he'd ever had with himself.

Cocking his head carefully until his eyes were in line with the world's camber, he grabbed more confidently at the handle, absurdly pleased when it folded under his pressure. Door handles really were awesome, he found himself thinking. All he'd had to do was press the thing down and then he was free. Why had he never realised how freakin' genius that was? He wondered if Sam had ever noticed...wait, of _course_ Sammy had noticed. He was the geek...college...professor...boy...girl of the family. No way did something like that get past his brother. Sammy was so much smarter than he was, not that he'd ever admit it.

Sam...Oh _god_! Sam!

The sunlight outside seemed to jab at his eyeballs as he stepped from the room, sending a pulsing sonar beam of pain shuddering through his brain to rebound sharply against the swelling lump at the back of his head. He hissed reflexively, stumbling backwards slightly as he raised a hand to shield his eyes. Beyond the swirling whiteness that was teasing at his peripheral vision, he could make out a gravelled wasteland of parking lot flanked by the depressing outline of what looked like Motel Block H.

He whipped his head this way and that, looking for some sort of directional cue to Sam's location, and immediately wished he hadn't when the action sent him lurching drunkenly towards the nearest wall. He threw out a hand and missed, banging his shoulder against the chipped stone render and scraping the tender skin on his bicep. The impact left little sewn stitches of blood mottling the broken skin, and Dean watched with an almost hypnotic fascination as the tiny red pinpricks slowly bloomed and popped with bubbles of stinging pain.

He stood for several beats, carefully scrutinising his injury as though it was a laboratory specimen before his mind snapped back into focus. Frowning with a confusion that was both worryingly mysterious and guiltily distracting, he determinedly swiped the blood from his arm and set off to find his brother, the wall his gnarled companion as he trailed his hand along its bumps and cracks. He wasn't about to admit to himself how much he needed it, how often the wall seemed to take his weight as he rocked with the ebb and flow of his unsteady gait. The ground beneath his feet seemed harsh and unforgiving, seemed to dig uncomfortably into his heels and toes. But onwards he walked, eager to get to Sam. To find his brother.

The wall seemed to end abruptly. One second it was there, and the next..._thanks for the freakin' warnin'!_...it was gone. And Dean wasn't managing so well without something at his side. The open space was disorientating, like being adrift in an endless ocean. An expanse of asphalt that he realised too late was actually a road. With cars. _Holy crap!_ The words didn't quite make it to his lips as a heavily fortified Dodge Charger whipped past him with inches to spare, accusatory horn blaring in staccato fanfare. He stumbled into reverse – towards the sidewalk he _hoped_ – and tripped backwards as his heels met the curb. Righting himself at the last second he managed to avoid toppling over.

"My god! You okay, buddy?" A hand brushed at his shoulder and Dean whirled around, hand reaching back into his waistband for a weapon that was inexplicably absent. Christ, where was his gun? Why wasn't he armed? He stared, wide-eyed at the man who'd grabbed him, dropping into a defensive stance as his eyes immediately assessed the threat level.

"Whoah, okay buddy! Didn't mean anything by it," The man, a skinny, middle-aged construction worker complete with muddy boots and fluorescent vest raised his hands calmly. "Just, uh, making sure you're all right. That was a close one, huh? Watch yourself on the road there, son."

Dean found himself nodding blankly as the man companionably doffed – actually doffed – his hard hat and backed away. Shaken, he shot a glance at the road; teeming with cars that whizzed back and forth before his eyes. The thought of what might have happened sent his stomach leaping up into his throat. How the hell had he just...walked out into it? What the hell was happening to him? He put a hand to his mouth and breathed slowly in and out through his nose as the urge to vomit slowly subsided.

Edging slowly away from the roadside, he quickly found himself caught instead in onward pedestrian traffic, the flow no less ruthless and unforgiving. One "Hey man, watch where you're going!" and he was off...jostled and bumped and shuffled and shoved. Dean was almost dizzy with disorientation by the time his – thankfully uninjured – arm brushed against a new wall. He bowed his head, coughing out a relieved huff as his hands explored the comforting solidity beside him, clutching at the smooth stonework as if it was the only thing keeping him from being swept away. In many ways it was.

When everything had stopped spinning, a motion that seemed to tug at his senses even though his eyes were shut – and how the hell was that even possible, anyway? – the hunter finally felt able to explore his surroundings. It took less than a second for him to realise that he hadn't a clue where he was. "What the hell...?" He muttered roughly, letting his eyes drift from bustling clothes stores, to the hubbub of a sidewalk corporate coffee meeting, to the grimy looking windows of the bar on the opposite side of the street that seemed to be doing a roaring trade despite the early hour. None of it was familiar.

Where was he?

Where was _Sam_?

Maybe if he just kept going, he'd see something he recognised, some clue about Sam's whereabouts. He was worried, could never turn off his little brother radar. The kid was his responsibility, the one job his father had truly trusted him with, and even then it had been with the derisive sneer of low expectations. How had he managed to lose his brother? Or had he lost himself, and maybe Sammy was out there frantically searching for _him_? This was so confusing. He started walking once more, the wall again his escort, taking him god only knew where. But direction mattered little when he didn't know where he had come from nor where he was headed.

His stomach grumbled loudly as he passed by the doorway of a well populated diner, the aroma of grease and sizzling meat wafting out into the street through a small gap that had been left between door and frame. It almost made him pause, the smell. It was so good, and he was so hungry. He couldn't even have hazarded a guess as to when he'd last eaten, but if his protesting gut was anything to go by, it had been a while. But Sam's absence was still bothering him, gnawing at his insides with a nausea that easily overpowered all thought of sustenance, so he cast a longing glance at the juicy looking steak pictured in the window and kept moving.

Dean wandered with purposeful aimlessness, knowing he had somewhere to be, but at a loss about _where_. Forward motion seemed as good a plan as any, though his aching feet were starting to launch scathing objections. The sidewalk seemed simple enough, but roads were a little more tricky, screwing with the hunter's well thought out plan and forcing him to join in with the herds of people as they crossed. Being without his wall felt like falling through infinite space, and every second he spent without something to hold onto, to ground him, made panic sluice manically through his veins. Once, he'd tried leaning onto a passer-by for support, only to be thumped in the face by a furiously wielded handbag.

He didn't know how long he'd been walking when he eventually realised; time represented another of those meaningless quantities when he neither knew what time he'd arrived...wherever he was, nor when he was supposed to get...wherever he was going. It had been at the cusp of yet another unknown corner, a new street that had yet to reveal anything recognisable. But more importantly, that had yet to reveal his brother's loping figure. And as soon as he remembered, he wanted to kick every inch of his stupid, weak, pathetic body.

What the hell had he been thinking? Looking for Sam like that. Jeez, he had to have hit his head, or had to have been drunk out of his mind for that particular wish to have become expressed like that. Just when he'd thought he'd gotten used to hunting alone...and oh, didn't that reminder just burn his heart with a hot poker? He'd _never_ get used to it. Every day looking over his shoulder, no one to watch his back. Every slice and gouge sewn up by his own shaking hand, more whisky ending up in his mouth than on the wound. Every creature, every spirit he'd faced down, not caring if it was his last...

No. Dean would never get used to that. But to start dreaming up his brother? To start believing that he wasn't alone, that he hadn't been discarded like a broken toy? That Sammy hadn't turned his back on him, that his little brother hadn't erased him from his life? That was a whole new level of demented, even for him.

Sam wasn't hunting with him. Would never hunt with him ever again.

Because Sammy was at Stanford. And Dean was alone.

Always alone.

o0o0o

Sam had taken to the streets in the Impala at first, the knee-jerk urgency of Dean's disappearance leading him to opt for speed over thoroughness. But he'd realised after a frantic half hour spent rapidly slaloming his attention between the road in front and the herd of indistinguishable afternoon shoppers streaming past on either side, that finding his brother in the surrounding chaos was going to be damn near impossible unless he began patrolling on foot. Twice he'd nearly rammed the Chevy into the back of a suddenly stationary car, the other driver having dutifully stopped for the red light that Sam had been too preoccupied to bother with. Another near miss had come in the form of a kamikaze jaywalker who'd narrowly escaped becoming the Impala's new hood ornament after Sam had managed to slam on the breaks at the last minute.

Driving was a distraction he couldn't afford. Not to mention the fact that trying to pick out his wayward brother amongst the blob of pedestrians that oozed along on either side was straining his eyes, drying them out so that they felt like rubber balls in their sockets. Being on the inside looking out was too blunt a method to detect any minor signs that might have lingered from his brother's passage; the world around him seemed blurred and unfocused through the windshield and windows. He'd hoped..._god_ he'd hoped that his big brother wouldn't have gotten far from the motel, but there had been no hint of Dean anywhere. And Sam had begun to feel the knot of panic tightening within him at every passing second that failed to yield his missing brother.

Gordon Walker was still in prison. That much Sam had found out from another stammering phone call to Lafayette, biting his nails anxiously as his eyes had swept the empty motel room for the umpteenth time. Dean's absence had endured throughout each examination, leading Sam to reluctantly drop any fanciful ideas about tricks of the light, or waking dreams, or...any other utterly ridiculous explanation he could come up with that didn't involve his brother being in danger, or hurt, or distressed. After eliminating Walker from the dizzying array of potential horrors, Sam had begun painstakingly combing the room for any trace of sulphur; an attack from Yellow-Eyes an ever terrifying prospect that perpetually lay close to the surface of his emotions. That he'd found none ought to have been something positive, an indication that Dean wasn't in trouble. That he'd just stepped out for a bite to eat and had forgotten to shut the door behind him.

Yeah, right.

Hearing his flustered breaths roaring hollowly in his ears, Sam had forced himself to take several distancing steps back towards the door, widening his mental lens so that he could survey the room as he would any other crime scene. And wasn't that just a cheerful thought? But the room was almost exactly as he had left it just hours earlier, only minus one big brother. Sam had felt his throat constrict at the thought. Nothing had been disturbed in the room, no sign that there had been a struggle of any kind. Setting his teeth grimly, Sam had decided that if something had come for his brother...that if whatever had infected him had come to retrieve him...Dean would have struggled. He knew it with a certainty that was both comforting and nauseating.

Comforting because it lessened the possibility that someone, or something had absconded with his brother, and nauseating because Sam could think of several things that had the mojo to remove Dean without leaving any trace.

Yellow-Eyes for one, could simply have beamed into the room, snatched Dean and then beamed back out again. The lack of sulphur had been reassuring, but Sam was a worried little brother fretting over the whereabouts of the most important person in his life, and he hadn't been about to let a little thing like common sense get in the way of his fear. In a frenzy, he'd scoured every inch of the bed Dean had been lying on, unable to banish the memory of finding Ava's butchered fiancé bathing in a pool of his own blood. That he'd found not a single crimson fleck had done nothing to diminish his anxiety.

Of course, the rational part of his brain – a timid creature quickly and easily slaughtered by the rabid juggernaut of fear in an epic battle that had turned bloody and feral – had told him that there was no reason for Yellow-Eyes to merely grab Dean rather than just kill him. Another comforting thought. Sam was the one the demon wanted, and he didn't think that the murdering sonofabitch would take his brother without being able to resist the opportunity to pop up and smugly gloat about it.

He hoped.

In the end though – demons and psychopathic hunters aside – it had been the abandoned boots that had guided him towards the most likely reason for Dean's disappearing act. He couldn't have said why the sight of his brother's dirt encrusted footwear had been the clincher, but once the idea had taken hold, he'd been unable to shake it. Maybe it had been the recollection of carefully untying and removing them from Dean's drooping feet after he'd settled his insensible big brother on the bed. Or maybe it had been the image of Dean's tear stained cheeks, the feel of his brother shaking and sobbing against his chest.

Dean hadn't known where he was, hadn't been able to make sense of anything; had believed their father was still alive just hours earlier. He'd been turned inside out with emotion and exhaustion, was disorientated, confused, achingly vulnerable. There had been an unpredictability about the elder Winchester that ought to have been a wake-up call to the person that knew him best, to the little brother that had spent a lifetime studying and trying to emulate him. Sam had known at the sight of the boots that he'd underestimated the extent of the trouble Dean was in. He'd blithely gone off to search the derelict care home and left his erratic brother alone. What had he been thinking, leaving Dean like that? Dammit, he'd been so _stupid_. He'd let his brother down in more ways that he could count.

He'd been so bent on seeking out whatever had been responsible for attacking Dean that he hadn't stopped to think about how friggin' distressed his brother might have been to wake to an empty room – _should have_, his mind had traitorously taunted him. After all, he'd been given ample demonstration over the past week alone. And when he'd thought about it, all of it, it had made perfect sense. Dean himself had noted it after his visit to the hospital; the confusion, the drifting, the _wandering_. Add those ingredients to his brother's already determined, stubborn, protective concoction, and it pointed towards one result. What had Dean done in the past when faced with a missing little brother? He'd gone searching for him. Only this time with no friggin' shoes and – a glance towards the nearest chair confirming his suspicions – no jacket. Sam had closed his eyes as a wave of grief washed over him, drowning him with the primitive instinct to shield his brother from harm. _Aw Dean..._

The younger Winchester had glanced forlornly at the boots once more, placed neatly beside the bed his brother had occupied; another meticulously planned gesture that had been completely miscalculated. The cell phone and note now seemed ludicrous and irresponsible under the cold microscope of self-flagellation. That his brother had missed all of Sam's safeguards spoke of a single-mindedness that the young hunter was only too familiar with. There was a very real possibility that Dean had left the room thinking his little brother was in danger. Sam had felt a pang, as he always did, at yet another demonstration of Dean's devotion to him.

He'd tried to ignore the pompous voice at the back of his head as he'd raced to the Impala, the one that had been superciliously telling him that Dean's monumental deception had been part of that devotion. Hell, it had been _all about_ Dean's devotion. Why hadn't he realised before?

Because he'd been too caught up in his own hurt, in his own sense of injustice. Not to mention the enormity of what his brother had told him, and what his apocalyptic destiny might mean. That last part he could justify, but the rest? Not anymore.

Throughout his journey from the motel, Sam had been trying not to give screen time to images of an agitated, distressed Dean wandering in blind bewilderment along the formidable, treacherous streets of an unfamiliar city. But his mind had delighted in fleshing out the motion picture, anxiety seeping the strength from his mental barriers until it was all he could see, all he could hear; the urgent beat of his distraught heart all he could feel.

Sam brought the Impala to a shuddering, jolting halt down a quiet side street, narrowly managing to avoid scraping the car's gleaming hubcaps against the curb by mere chance rather than design. As soon as he felt his forward motion cease, he vaulted from the seat, feeling the Chevy still vibrating angrily beneath him as she protested his careless handling. The younger Winchester took barely a pause to lock the door before he was jogging back towards the main thoroughfare, eyes dancing to and fro as he desperately searched for a familiar, spiky head. The crowd here was sparser, more barren; the odd striding suit and strolling pushchair peppering the sidewalk like patchy shrubs on a dusty plain. Sam welcomed the emptiness, gladdened to be able to discard one street from the frightening number he had yet to fully search.

Reaching the corner of the busy boulevard, he stopped to take stock, shifting on his feet as he rotated slowly; always looking, always scanning. Swallowing heavily in an effort to relieve the gritty dryness in his mouth, he tried to view the scene in front of him through the eyes of his confused brother. And blanched. The whole world was tumultuously buzzing and swirling, a hurricane of cacophonous noise and motion. Horns were blaring, cell phones were ringing, strident voices were opining, heels were clipping, jackhammers were pounding. It was a mess, a full frontal assault on the senses. He could only imagine what it would do to a befuddled mind.

Crap, Sam _had_ to find his brother. Right the hell _now_.

He bit his lip ferociously – hard enough to hurt, but not sharply enough to reopen the split that Dean's fist had torn earlier – as he mentally catalogued the street before him, looking for any clue that his brother might have been attracted this way. Dragging a shaking hand through the floppy strands of his now sweat-dampened hair, he was forced to admit to himself that Dean might have just gone to ground, that he might have found a bolt-hole somewhere – be it bar, or diner or..._anywhere_. But Sam would have to check the busier streets first, in the hope that someone would remember seeing his big brother.

But where to start?

Admitting to himself that it probably wouldn't make much difference either way, he turned to his left and was quickly absorbed into the droves of pedestrians. He allowed their flow to carry him forwards, the mindlessness of the collective motion allowing him to devote more attention to his surroundings. He peered through the gleaming windows of upmarket shop fronts at the studiously browsing customers within, squinted through the layers of grime and nicotine to discern the sagging, slumped figures of local barflies as they bowed in worship at oak-topped counters, and stared past pinned pictures and menus to scrutinise the masses of Peoria's hungry patrons as they devoured their meals.

Nobody was Dean.

It was through sheer luck that he caught the casually tossed comment, the words reaching his ears through a merciful break in the rapid, machine-gun jackhammering that had been battering against large blocks of concrete as the crowd flowed by a cordoned off construction site. Sam had been aware of the pulsing drill for as long as he had been there, but the noise had rocketed into an impressive crescendo the closer the mob had drawn him. So when the din had suddenly ceased, the other noises that Sam's brain had relegated to background irrelevance all at once began to magnify.

"I know, some people are crazy, right? I mean, earlier I saw some guy just run right out into the middle of the road. Nearly got 'imself turned into roadkill too. Guy wasn't even wearin' any _shoes_!"

Sam stumbled, blood suddenly freezing in his veins. He barely felt the pushing and prodding of the insistent horde behind him as he ducked out of their way. His legs felt abruptly weak and wobbly as he edged closer to the gossiping workers, the terrible meaning of the words sinking in. _Nearly got himself turned into roadkill._

The man who'd spoken was a wiry, middle-aged man who'd mangled himself into a contorted seating position atop the abused hunk of concrete he'd been drilling into, twisting himself even more impossibly as he reached for the cup of coffee that a younger, more bulbous man was passing up to him. "Probably jacked up on somethin', Bill," the rotund worker grunted, fleshy arm jiggling as he held up the steaming cup.

"Yeah," Bill took a deep swig before wiping a sleeve across his mouth and smacking his lips in appreciation. "Went over to check if he was okay and he totally freaked out. I tell ya, I thought he was gonna deck me for sure. Young people nowadays, huh? Looked at me like I was holdin' a gun on 'im."

Sam frowned, lips tightening as he took in these new details. It sounded like Dean, but he was more than a little wary of trusting in this apparent stroke of luck. The Winchester family hadn't had what might have been called a _successful streak_ over the years. Good fortune wasn't something they'd ever had cause to rely upon.

"So what happened then?"

Bill shrugged skeletally, all jagged shoulders and pointed elbows. "Just turned and wandered off. Dunno where he went after that. Haven't seen 'im since."

Sam felt his stomach take a bungee jump, his heart slamming against his chest in disappointed frustration. The guy didn't know anything, wouldn't be able to tell him where Dean had gone. Still, he needed to check, needed to be sure that this man had really seen his brother; to know that he wasn't clutching at straws. He stepped up to the cordon, clearing his throat loudly until he had the attention of the two men.

"Excuse me...I, uh, couldn't help overhearing. I'm looking for my brother. Sounds like you might have seen him," The tone was soft, entreating. He was just a young, innocent boy out looking for his errant sibling. Nothing unusual, nothing threatening. And still the men eyed him warily. Maybe he hadn't been as adept at suppressing his dangerous territoriality as he'd thought. He bit his lip softly, going for shy and intimidated, and pulled out a photo of Dean – one of his brother's affected _Blue Steel_ stares torn from a phony driver's licence in the name of Dean Fogerty. "Is this the man you saw?"

Bill slithered from his perch, spindly limbs splaying out like a spider's as he landed in the dust, the coffee in his cup slopping over his hand as he moved, causing him to curse under his breath. Shaking his head at his clumsiness, he reached for the photo and plucked it from Sam's outstretched hand. His eyes flickered with a recognition that made the young hunter's heart thud dully. "Yep. That's him all right. What's the deal, he on drugs or somethin'? Heavy night?" He handed the photo back.

Sam had to pause to regain his breath, a choking constriction somewhere between relief and queasiness squeezing his throat. How was he going to say this? "Uh, he's just..." He cleared his throat unsubtly. "...had a rough time of it lately," He settled for non-committal, wondering if his imploring, doe-eyed act would work on ageing construction workers as well as big brothers and elderly women.

Bill nodded sympathetically. Apparently it did.

"Did he...say...anything at all?" Sam asked, not having to fake the emotion that roughened his voice.

"I'm sorry son, he just stared at me, terrified like. Told 'im I didn't mean 'im no harm, and he just wandered off."

"Okay...uh, where was this? What direction was he headed?"

Bill scratched his chin in exaggerated contemplation. "Corner of Main and Douglas. He woulda been headin' west I think."

Sam was moving before the older man had even finished answering. "Thanks!" He called back over his shoulder, already mentally mapping out this new information.

The younger Winchester hadn't really expected his big brother to be waiting patiently for him, but he still felt the acrid taste of sour dismay hitting the back of his throat when he reached the location Bill had directed him to and didn't see hide nor hair of Dean. Sam felt just as lost and bereft here as he had when he'd started his search, but at least he knew now that his brother had come here under his own steam. It gave him some small sense of comfort to know that he wasn't running around on a wild goose chase. He was going to find Dean. Come hell or high water, he was going to find him.

He continued west, heart pounding in his throat, body tensed for the tiniest clue. The people he passed on his way seemed suddenly sinister now, innocuous expressions turning jeering, taunting. More than once he felt their eyes on him as he swam upstream against the flow of bodies; and found himself staring back suspiciously, fighting an unexpected paranoia as he analysed their faces, wondering if they'd seen his brother, if they were somehow hiding him.

When a familiar scent reached his nostrils, heavy and saturated with grease and oil, Sam couldn't help but hesitate, body helplessly responding even as his brain tried to urge him onwards. Turning on the spot, his eyes widened in instantaneous recognition. It was the ill-fated diner he and Dean had attempted to sample the previous morning. The one with the certifiable waitress...who would _almost certainly_ remember seeing his big brother if he'd come this way. The grubby, drab browns and greys of the faded, paint-chipped frontage had never seemed so welcome. It was a landmark. Something he was sure Dean would pick up on, even if only subconsciously.

Feeling a tiny, triumphant smile tugging at his lips he swiftly pulled open the door and marched in, almost certain that he'd see his brother tucked away in one of the booths, enthusiastically shovelling food into his mouth. Except he didn't. Dean wasn't there. Instead, the room was filled with wailing children, scolding mothers and sheepish-looking fathers. What few lone customers there were sat in insular hunches at the long counter, blocking out the surrounding commotion with newspapers and downward stares. But there was no Dean. Sam felt his blood drain straight to his toes, his head filling swiftly with a cotton wool fuzziness. Dammit, he'd made the mistake of being seduced by one friggin' stroke of luck. He should have known it wasn't going to last.

"Oooh, _Mike_! Not in front of the customers!" A familiar voice giggled flirtatiously above the murmuring and clinking and clattering around him, and Sam whirled round to see Daniela the waitress wiggling her hips suggestively as she sashayed breezily from the kitchen, a brimming plate held aloft in each swaying hand.

One eyebrow somehow simultaneously rising and frowning, Sam couldn't help but snort in disbelief. Apparently _Mike_ had gotten over his grouchiness of the previous morning, either that or the two of them had simply worked out their frustrations in the bedroom.

"Keep it PG-13 honey!" She called back over her shoulder without bite or snark, swivelling to bestow a winning smile upon her waiting patrons, a family of four who were now staring up at her nervously. Sam knew the feeling.

He caught her on her way back. "Hey! Daniela, right?"

She swung towards him at the summons, eyes crinkling slightly as she tried to place him. "Oh, it's you," She huffed, looking less than pleased. "You forget something after you ran out on me yesterday, huh?"

Sam grimaced apologetically, following with a bashful smile for good measure. "Yeah...Sorry about that. Something came up."

She rewarded him with a sullen, one shouldered shrug. "So? What do you want?"

"I'm looking for my brother, the guy I was with yesterday. I thought he might be here. Have you seen him?"

Mentioning Dean seemed to unlock something within the peeved waitress, cutting the lines of tension that had held her rigid and turning her almost gooey. "_Oh!_ Yeah!" She smiled, salivating in a way that made Sam feel distinctly uncomfortable. "No. Well, I mean...he didn't come in here, if that's what you mean."

Sam felt his face crumple. "Oh...well, thanks anyway."

"Hey, I said he didn't come in. I didn't say I never saw him," As Sam's features hardened, a quiet intensity blazing from his suddenly piercing eyes, she raised her hands placatingly and took an edgy, defensive step backwards. "I saw him through the window, all right? He stopped outside for _ages_, just kinda peering in. Looked like freakin' death warmed over."

Sam flinched at the description, his mind only too willing to supply the visuals. "How long ago was this? Where did he go?"

"In a _minute_, Mike!" The burnt edge had returned to her voice as she snapped back over her shoulder. Returning her attention to Sam, she sighed and waved a hand westwards. "Maybe an hour? I wasn't really keeping track. He kept on going that way. That's all I can tell ya. What's wrong with him anyway? He eat some bad food or something? Wouldn't have gotten _bad food_ if he'd stayed here yesterday."

"Yeah," Sam agreed hastily, unwilling to prolong the conversation. An hour's head start? He needed to get back out there straight away. "We'll uh, we'll come back another day, when he's feeling better." _Yeah, right!_

"You do that. I've got something cooking that I just know your brother will _love_!" She licked her lips lasciviously, following it up with a coy smile. Just in case Sam hadn't already gotten the message. It had been on the tip of his tongue to suggest that _Mike_ might not be all that happy about it, but he still wasn't entirely sure that the supposed cook wasn't a figment of her imagination.

Tossing Daniela a tight smile that barely papered over the cracks of his fraying nerves, he pivoted and strode from the diner, more certain than ever that his big brother was within his sights.

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear if you enjoyed..._


	8. Mind Games

Chapter 8 already? Wheeee! Hope you're all enjoying the ride so far!

Thank you to everyone who reviewed, alerted and favourited. You all spur me on to keep writing!

Thanks also to Sharlot for waving her magic beta wand over this chapter.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 8 – Mind Games**

Knowing at least that Dean had continued in the same direction had been something to grasp onto, a hope that could shine a light against the encroaching darkness that seemed to be seeping down into his core from the growing twilight. The sun had begun to fade towards the horizon, dragging with it a honey coloured slipstream that mingled prettily with the deepening blues and pinks, and sparkled with a golden hue. It would have been a sight to behold, if Sam Winchester had been paying it any attention. But instead of enjoyment, all he felt was a growing despair; his flickering candle of optimism dimming pathetically under the onslaught. When night fully fell, it was going to make his job so much harder. It was going to make the streets so much more dangerous for his unbalanced brother.

Despite the adrenaline-fuelled surge of energy that Daniela's revelation had initially prompted, the search had progressed slowly. Too much time had passed with no further hint, nor clue of Dean's presence, and Sam had felt his worry ramp up a notch with every step he took, every empty side street he passed, every shade darker the sky grew.

_C'mon, man. Where the hell are you?_

The main street crowd had gradually started to thin as satiated shoppers and liberated office workers began to head for home, and Sam had studied the growing emptiness that stretched into the distance with a sceptical trepidation. He no longer believed that his brother had stayed on this trajectory, and was beginning to fear that Dean had strayed off at some earlier random corner and headed in a completely different direction; a vertiginous thought that made Sam feel as if he was teetering on the edge of an infinite abyss of hopelessness. His brother could have gone _anywhere_.

Screwing his eyes shut, he forced back the frustrated tears that were already brimming in readiness for the loss he feared – that he always seemed to fear these days. But he wasn't going to give up. No way. Even if it took him all friggin' night. Returning to the motel without his brother was not an option.

He'd been about to turn back to make a fuller search of the side streets he'd passed on his way when he saw it, would have missed it completely, in fact, had a driver not fortuitously decided to swing around a nearby corner at precisely the right moment; headlight beams sweeping across the opposite wall and illuminating it like a camera flash bulb. And Sam nearly felt his knees buckle.

One sock-covered foot poked discreetly out from an inset doorway half-way down the street that the younger Winchester had been about to abandon. As Sam craned his neck for a better view, he caught sight of the bloody toes that were bursting from torn holes in the ruined cotton, the foot they belonged to crooked and twisted awkwardly from a limp leg that was bent sharply at the denim-clad knee. It was all he could see of his big brother in the fading light, but he knew – just friggin' knew – that it was him. The falling dew of realisation tingled coolly down the length of his body, as if his senses had picked up some hidden frequency before conscious awareness had tuned in.

If Sam had stopped at all to think about what he'd just done, he might have pondered how strange it was that he could recognise Dean from a leg and some torn clothes. But he hadn't, and he didn't.

An instant later and he was sprinting – footsteps so light and swift he was almost flying – nearly over-shooting the doorway as he skidded to a graceless halt before the slumped figure. "Dean!" He gasped out in disbelieving relief, a smile involuntarily forming at the corners of his lips as he righted his balance and shifted back towards his brother. He'd found him. He'd finally found him. Maybe the infamous Winchester luck had just taken a turn for the better.

"_Dean?_"

Maybe not.

The elder Winchester had crammed himself into the farthest corner of the doorway, not that the cramped space looked to be offering the elder hunter's bulky, muscular frame much shelter. Nevertheless, Dean had curled protectively in on himself, arms bent at the elbows, hands latticed behind his head as if preparing to shield himself from a nuclear blast. His breaths came in rapid fire pants, snagging every so often on a shivering cough that seemed to jolt his entire body. One leg was folded beneath him, the denim ripped and scuffed at the knee; tiny, rusty pockmarks betraying the scrapes that marred his exposed skin. Sam felt his throat close over at the sight – at this blatant display of his big brother's attempts to hide himself from the world – his chest tightening painfully as suddenly deprived lungs fought for sustenance.

"Dean, hey, c'mon. You okay?" He hadn't stirred at Sam's call, hadn't even twitched.

The younger Winchester fell to a crouch beside his brother, barely noticing as the streetscape carpet of glass shards and chipped stone immediately began digging sharply into his knees. His hands ghosted hesitantly over Dean's stiffened form, almost frightened to touch, as if the slightest disturbance would shatter him. From the meagre, pallid light afforded to him from a nearby street lamp, Sam got his first clear look at his brother's condition. The young hunter set his jaw in concern, eyes sliding shut for the briefest of remorseful moments. Dean was filthy, charcoal smudges of dirt smearing his shirt, face and limbs. There were scrapes and bruises decorating his bare arms – scrapes and bruises that hadn't been there when Sam had left him back at the motel – puckering against the chilled, goosebump topography of his skin; a painful chronicle of the ordeal he'd suffered in Sam's absence.

Gritting his teeth as another battering wave of guilt broke against his heart, Sam leaned forward, sharp gaze scanning for signs of awareness.

"Dean, hey! It's me, man. Wake up!" The younger Winchester tried again, reaching around Dean's defensive huddle to cup the elder hunter's cheek, momentarily stroking his thumb against the worryingly cool stubble there as he peered up into Dean's shuttered features. His brother looked as if he had fallen asleep mid-recoil, and Sam felt something acidic begin to congeal at the pit of his stomach.

The younger Winchester sensed the change in the rhythm of Dean's breathing just in time not to be startled by the scratchy whisper. "Sammy?" The endearment was rough, scraping against Sam's eardrum like sandpaper. But to a frantic little brother who'd spent the previous few hours dreaming up all kinds of horrors, it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

"Hey!" He huffed out a breath that caught like a sob and gargled slightly in his throat, turning his ready smile into a strained crease. He reached out both hands to grasp Dean lightly by the shoulders. "I'm here. I've got you, all right?"

"Wha...?" Dean croaked feebly, lowering his arms and shifting weakly against the younger man's grip. As Sam's hand moved to cup his cheek once more, Dean instinctively rolled his head into his little brother's touch, the eyes that the younger Winchester had been longing to see continuing to shyly maintain their modesty behind frustratingly impermeable lids.

Sam gulped past the baseball that had become lodged at the back of his throat at the uncharacteristic closeness that his big brother had just allowed. "Dean, c'mon," He patted the elder hunter's cheek insistently, biting his lip when Dean's head merely lolled listlessly in response. The image reminded him too strongly of finding his electrocuted brother in the basement of that abandoned house, graphically reawakening an old terror that he couldn't afford to be distracted by. "Let's get out of here, huh? Hobo look doesn't suit you, dude."

"Least...I don't look like...a girl," came the murmured comeback, the jibe somewhat ruined by the spectre of a smile flitting across his face. Eyes still sealed shut, Dean looked about ready to end his brief foray into wakefulness, a soft, sleepy moan starting to tug him back down into unconsciousness.

"No, no, no, no, no," Sam chanted quietly as he gently raised his brother's head from where it had started to tilt backwards. "You can sleep back at the motel, okay? You'll be more comfortable there..." He paused with a brittle chuckle, "Well, maybe not _that_ much more comfortable. It was one of your picks after all."

Was it possible to roll closed eyes?

"All right, come on. Let's get you out of here," Sam waited a beat, deciding at the lack of any kind of verbal agreement from his brother that silence most definitely gave consent. He slid his hands under Dean's armpits and round to clasp them behind his back, pulling his brother towards him in a half-hug as he started to hoist him upwards. The lack of objection to the manhandling would have been a cause for concern even without the cold that radiated dully from the elder hunter's popsicle arms. Wincing at the chill, and making a mental note to wrap Dean in the warmth of his jacket as soon as he'd gotten his brother standing, Sam cursed softly, "Dammit, you're freezing."

Dean merely slumped forward against him, mumbling an undulating string of incomprehensible sounds as Sam tried to support his weight. At the angle of his brother's awkward sag, the younger Winchester had to lean with him, feeling his balance start to wobble precariously as he adjusted himself. Dean had still not managed to find his feet, and seemed content for Sam to manoeuvre him like a rag doll. "You're gonna need to help me out a little here Dean. You need to cut down on the pies, man." He sighed when the taunt failed to get any kind of rise from his brother, and it occurred to him then just how much he missed their banter. He'd forgotten how much Dean's grousing and snarking took his mind off the unpleasantness of seeing his brother hurt – which was no doubt one of Dean's primary reasons for doing it in the first place.

But now, in the silence, it was so much easier to dwell on how screwed they really were, on how little time he had left to save his big brother's life.

When elder Winchester abruptly stiffened in his arms, Sam nearly dropped him, certain that he'd somehow inadvertently hurt his brother with his handling. "Dean? You okay?" Seeing that his brother's eyes had finally opened, Sam ducked his head in search of their attention, trying to seek out the reassurance of Dean's presence. Of his _conscious_ presence. "Hey!"

"Get the hell off me!" Dean suddenly growled, pushing harshly against Sam's hold with unexpected violence. His gentle hold easily broken, the younger hunter found himself stumbling backwards, hand reaching out for the nearby wall to break his involuntary momentum as Dean exploded from his grip.

Sam carefully raised his palms out on either side of his chest, immediately wary. Somehow this seemed more extreme than the usual '_Personal space, Sammy'_ objection that was a staple in the Dean Winchester deflection manual. There was an unstable, volatile danger in the air, an electrical current flowing between them that seemed seconds away from sparking. Dean was eyeing him with the panicked flightiness of a cornered animal as Sam took a slow step forward. "Whoa, whoa, Dean! It's okay. It's _me_. It's Sammy."

The familial appellation had stuck in his craw for years, a remnant of the poisonous resentment he'd once felt towards being the child of the family – of being the one who'd never had choice nor voice. Using 'Sam' had been his way of becoming an adult, of becoming the person he'dwanted to be. A choice _he_ had made. When he'd started hunting with Dean again, all the name 'Sammy' had done was push him back towards the role of _bossed-around-little-brother_ that he'd been railing against for years. But now...now it had become a symbol of the bond he and Dean shared, his big brother the only one he allowed the privilege of using it. Somewhere along the line he'd stopped seeing it as a sign of subjugation, of who he'd used to be, of the version of himself he'd tried to leave behind. It had become warmth, affection, _Dean_.

So he used it now – by choice – in the hope that it would shine like a beacon through the fog of his brother's confusion, that it would chime somewhere deep.

But Dean just laughed; a bitter, disbelieving sneer warping his lips. "It's _Sam_." The words came out as an affected impression – of _himself_, Sam could only imagine. It might have made him smile, had the situation been remotely funny. That Dean hadn't believed his little brother would use the nickname made something splinter in Sam's core, catapulting him back to those Stanford years and the many that had come before. To a time when Dean's imitation had been more than accurate. "That was your first mistake, you son of a bitch," Dean was continuing, venomous eyes hissing and spitting at him. "Second mistake? Choosin' to use _my brother_ as your freakin' Halloween costume!"

_Aw Jesus, Dean!_ The blows just kept on coming. Sam ground his teeth, slumping his shoulders and letting his hands drop to his hips in a moment of indulgent defeat before attempting to collect the thoughts that Dean's words had scattered. "Dean, I'm not a shapeshifter. I swear." The words dribbled out in a childish whine that he'd never intended, but secretly hoped that his big brother would respond to. Dean had never been able to resist an opening like that. But the elder hunter merely stared back at him with a delicately arched brow, tension swelling within his defensive stance like a rolling wave.

"That's the best you got?" The anger was buzzing and frothing around Dean, buffeting and swirling the wave until it rose to tower over Sam like a tsunami.

"Dean, I–" The younger Winchester began, aborting both objection and forward motion as Dean interrupted with an accusatory jab of his index finger.

"My brother's half a freakin' country away! Haven't even heard from him in over a year, and what, he just happens to turn up, outta the blue in Crapholesville, whatever-friggin'-state-this-is, USA?" He waved his arms around vaguely, as if to reinforce his distaste at their surroundings. "I don't think so. I didn't even tell _Dad _where I was goin'. Not that he gives a crap anyway."

Sam gaped. Couldn't help himself. Dean thought he was still...Jeez, Dean couldn't even remember...His brother thought he was still at Stanford? Even his internal voice was stuttering and stammering as it tried to talk him through this new development. What was he going to do, to say? It was like the morning's episode all over again, the ground collapsing underneath his feet and sending him free-falling.

There was an almost defiant defeat about Dean in that moment, and Sam knew he'd have to watch his step, he couldn't afford to frighten the older man off again.

He wasn't even thinking about the fact that his brother had just admitted that he'd often taken hunting jobs without even informing their father. _Jesus, Dean! You were hunting and no one even knew where you were?_ Well, okay, maybe he was a little. Or a lot. But that was more than he was capable of dealing with right then. He was having a hard enough time synthesising the past eighteen months into a story that would be halfway believable, that would convince his brother not to mount the attack he was, in all likelihood, preparing. "Dean, don't you remember? I...you...came to Stanford. You asked me to help you find Dad, and I did. Only we couldn't find him. You took me back to California, but...but, Jess...my-my girlfriend...she died, the, uh, the demon killed her. You saved me from the fire, and we started looking for Dad, hunting–"

"What? You and me...hunting? Yeah, right," Dean was looking at him as if he'd just insisted that they should paint the Impala pink. "I dunno where you're gettin' this crap from, but you're not Sam. He'd never come back huntin' with me. Heard that enough freakin' times! Wants to go lead some normal, apple pie life. Why would he come back, huh?For his_ family_? For _me_?I don't think so. I'm alone. I'm always alone."

"Dean–"

"Even when Dad and I worked together, we were hardly in the same room. Guy was like a freakin' ninja. Always disappearin' on me when I'd least expect it," Dean went on, flicking a dismissive hand and pursing his lips grimly.

Sam tried to take the verbal assault stoically, knowing it was so much less than he deserved for the way he'd treated Dean while he'd been at college. But the words still sliced more deeply than he'd thought possible. The pain they unleashed was potent, but it wasn't just his own wounds that bled. Dean's hurt throbbed tangibly in every word. Sam knew he was hearing things he would never normally have been privy to if Dean had been in his right mind. It felt wrong, listening to his brother's private thoughts like this. Just as it had when the shapeshifter had kidnapped him. He had to do something to protect his brother from this, to give him the dignity that this disease was slowly stripping from him.

"Look, Dean it's really me! I'll prove it to you, all right? Silver knife," he pulled a small dagger from his jacket pocket, making sure that Dean's eyes were following the gleaming blade as he drew it slowly across the delicate skin on his forearm, slicing a small cut that trickled claret coloured blood in the dusky light. The elder hunter frowned at the gesture, a tiny crease rather than the usual deep furrow. As if Sam's demonstration had only mildly confused him. But when he glanced up at his little brother, the planes of his face had softened, his eyes crinkling as the vitriol drained away to be replaced by something warm and affectionate. "Sammy?"

"Yeah, man. It's me," Sam twitched a shrug and quirked his lips, feeling an unexpected shyness bring colour to his cheeks at the expression of open fondness on his brother's face.

"What are you...why did you...?" Dean faltered, staring intensely at the younger man, a heart-rending smile threatening to blossom, but hurriedly suppressed with an effort that made Sam ache. He could almost see the walls around his brother's heart being bricked up again piece by piece, walls that the younger Winchester had been trying so hard to demolish. The uncertainty, the cautiousness that had characterised the early days of their renewed partnership was back. "How are you here? I call you or somethin'? What's goin' on?"

Oh. Now it made more sense. Dean still thought his little brother was at college. And though it felt like his heart was being slowly squeezed in an iron vice, he had to take his brother's painfully uninhibited self-consciousness as an improvement on the outright hatred that had mangled Dean's features just moments earlier. But now he didn't know what to do. Should he play along? Make up a story that fitted in with whatever world Dean was seeing before his eyes? The thought of deceiving his big brother left him with a grubbiness that was more than skin deep, that seemed to stain his very soul. And yet, the truth hadn't gotten him far on any of the times he'd tried to set his brother's head straight with reality.

Inhaling thickly, he set his shoulders and dragged his eyes up from where they had been eagerly contemplating a dark stain on the tip of his left shoe. Meeting Dean's gaze steadily, he flashed him a timid smile and shrugged once more. Decision made. "Uh...yeah, Dean. You called me a couple of days ago, you were...you needed me to, um, to do some research." _Oh yeah, good one Sammy,_ he grimaced internally, but gained some guilty confidence when he realised that Dean was eagerly lapping up the explanation. _I'm sorry about this, man_. "And...well, it's Spring Break, so I thought I'd come help out for a few days."

"Really?" The flash of pleasure was hastily dismantled from Dean's expression once more as disbelief was quickly erected in its place. "What was I huntin'? And why the hell can't I remember? And where are my freakin' boots?"

Sam puffed out the breath he'd been nervously holding, relieved that he hadn't had to work harder and yet saddened at how easy it had been to fool his brother. He'd been surprised that Dean hadn't asked him about school, about how life had been at Stanford; the prepared script he'd mentally penned going wasted at his brother's easy acceptance of the story. He wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

"Look man, I'll fill you in when we get back to the motel, okay? You're hurt, Dean. I, uh, I don't know what happened. I just...found you like this," Sam's fraying voice was threatening to snap under the strain of the lie, but he kept on going, knowing that getting Dean to agree to leave with him was more important than appeasing his own judgemental conscience. "C'mon, Dean. I'll help you get cleaned up and then we can work on the case, okay?"

"I don't need your help, college boy," Dean grumbled, but grudgingly began moving in the direction that Sam had indicated with a sweep of his arm. "Been stitchin' myself up just fine since you took off to Stanford." The jibe might have had more bite if it hadn't been delivered at whispered pitch, and if it hadn't been interspersed with the winces that each step of his abused feet were clearly causing him.

"Okay, fine," Sam agreed quickly, not wanting to push his luck. They'd revisit that point later, once he had Dean safely back at the motel. And contained. He shrugged off his jacket, holding it out to his brother as the elder hunter stepped gingerly passed him. "But take this, huh? You're freezing, dude."

Dean tossed him a scathing glance, looking insulted at the offer. "What are you talkin' about Sammy? I'm burnin' up here!"

"Dean," Sam threw out an arm to halt his brother, a little surprised when the elder Winchester didn't merely push past. "You're wearing it."

"Dude, I am _not_ wearin' your gigantor clothes! I got an image to maintain."

Spinning Dean to face him with an ease that was unsettling, Sam sighed and gave his brother the silent, kicked puppy entreaty that the elder hunter had never been able to resist. Granted, Dean put up an admirable fight, but seconds later he was caving in just as Sam had known he would. "All right, fine!"

Sam took no real pleasure in the older man's acquiescence, but he couldn't prevent a triumphant smirk from surfacing. Especially when he saw how the jacket utterly swamped his big brother's shorter frame, the cuffs extending beyond the span of Dean's arms and flapping slightly as he walked. The look of deepest disgust on Dean's face was so priceless that Sam almost forgot how serious the situation really was.

But he quickly sobered at the stream of "Ow" and "Son of a bitch" and "Dammit" that flowed freely from his brother's mouth as he attempted to walk on shredded soles. Several times on the long journey back to the Impala he tried to take Dean's arm, but on each occasion received an ungrateful slap on his arm and a litany of anatomically infeasible suggestions of what he could do with himself. Eventually, after nearly taking an impressive tumble, Dean had relented, much of the fight having left him as pain and exhaustion began to draw him under their draining spell.

Watching as Dean's face had become increasingly more haggard had been difficult enough without the added trauma of being subjected to an in-depth play by play of his brother's many solo hunts. Jobs – as Dean had pointed out on numerous occasions – that he could really have done with Sam's help on. And though it was great that Sam was here now, he hadn't been around when the vengeful spirit of a murdered child had sent his big brother crashing down a two storey drop, or when a rawhead had sliced a gash from knee to ankle, or when the stray bullet from a trigger happy deer hunter had torn a hole in _his_ side instead of the chupacabra that had been the intended target. And while he was at it, did Sam realise how difficult it was to tackle a baykok single-handedly? Baykoks were friggin' ugly sons of bitches. Did Sam know that? And did he also know how difficult it was to kill one without anyone to watch his back? Those things were ugly and hard to gank.

Yes. If Sam hadn't understood before, then he definitely did now.

Sam had tried everything to distract his brother from the subject, but no matter what topic he raised or how he attempted to redirect Dean's attention, the elder Winchester kept reverting to it as though he was a carrier pigeon returning to roost. As much as Sam had always wanted to know what Dean had been doing while he'd been at Stanford, he hadn't wanted to find out this way. He'd wanted his brother to _want_ to share it with him, not for it to be ripped from Dean's lips with cruel, ruthless candour. But when it became clear that Dean would not be budged, the younger Winchester had settled into a placating pattern of half-hearted appeasements and mechanical pacifications; a rote routine he'd kept up until Dean had talked himself into a vacant stupor. Sam hadn't known which was worse.

They'd taken a circuitous route back to the Impala through deserted side streets and dingy alleyways, the younger Winchester not wanting to risk his brother to the scrutiny of others, and only too worried that some well meaning do-gooder would try and have Dean committed. The trek had been long and arduous, Dean unable to tolerate long distances without having to stop for a rest. Sam had waited impatiently, fretting over the pain his brother was in – in addition to the possibility of infection setting in to the wounds on his feet – but wanting to get him the hell back to the safety of the motel room where he could tend to him in private.

After another half hour of unsteady stumbling, Sam now bearing the brunt of his big brother's weight as Dean wilted against him, they were finally rewarded with the sight of the Impala. Sam didn't think he'd ever been so glad to see her, the Chevy's comforting presence wrapping him suddenly in a warm blanket of safety and shelter. She had always been his ally in the care of Dean, seeming to aid him in ways that could not merely be explained by pure mechanics. She was a comforter, a protector, a refuge; she was home.

Not to mention the fact that even being in her vicinity seemed to have roused Dean, to have given strength to withering limbs, to have bolstered a flagging will. Sam couldn't help but smile at the way his brother cooed over her, wanting to tease but too happy at the sight of Dean looking so delighted. There had been a token tussle over who would take the wheel, something that the younger hunter was more pleased about than he would ever have admitted. If Dean had the strength for even a half-hearted argument, Sam wasn't about to complain. He won in the end of course, Dean practically drooping on the spot. All it had taken had been a throwaway comment about not wanting to see the Impala wrapped around a lamp post for his big brother to finally capitulate, and as soon as Sam had settled the older man into the passenger seat, Dean had promptly dozed off. Sam would have rested his case, if Dean had been aware enough to appreciate it.

The younger Winchester spent the drive back to the motel carefully dividing his attention between the road in front and the slumbering figure beside him, but once Dean had been dragged beneath the surface of his consciousness, he hadn't come back up for air. Sam had more than managed to fill the silence with his own anxious ruminations however, the background chatter from his internal cogitation buzzing in his ears and setting his teeth on edge. He might have found Dean and brought him safely home, but he still had to figure out how to save the older man from the disease that was slowly wasting him from the inside. And it was clear that he couldn't leave his big brother unattended anymore. Dean was going to need constant supervision and Sam didn't intend to lose him again. But he couldn't cart his brother along with him either, and soon – terrifyingly soon – Dean probably wouldn't be in any shape to even leave his bed.

There was only one option.

It wasn't until after he'd gotten Dean settled back at the motel room that he had the chance to make the call. By the time Sam had manoeuvred his befuddled brother out of the Impala, ferried him across the gravel parking lot, and unlocked the door – the added strain of Dean's bulk making the task feel as delicate and urgent as defusing a bomb – the elder Winchester had wakened considerably. Which had resulted in the task of cleaning and tending to his big brother's many wounds turning into the kind of frustratingly farcical exercise that had reminded Sam of the time he'd witnessed a college friend trying to force her spitting, wailing, clawing cat into a cramped cat carrier. She'd turned the air blue that day, and after a half hour of trying to pin down his irascible brother, Sam was well past blue and hurtling towards violet.

After threatening Dean with restraint, fratricide and confiscation of the Impala (in order of seriousness), he'd eventually lured him to the television set and left him entranced under its hypnotic spell. He'd mercifully managed to locate a showing of _Every Which Way but Loose_ and had left Dean cheerfully reciting each line as he'd stepped out into the parking lot. He'd taken the precaution of locking the door, even though he had no intention of straying far, and even though nothing short of pie would have been able to drag Dean away from a Clint Eastwood movie. His brother was safe. For now.

And if Sam wanted to keep him that way, he had to make the call.

The phone clicked after the third ring, the gruff voice that answered triggering a relieved sigh that almost entirely deflated the tension from his exhausted body. If anyone could help him...

"Bobby? It's Sam. I need your help."

o0o0o

His eyes traced the pattern. Over and over and over. Orange then purple. Orange then purple. Orange then purple. It was mesmerising, his pupils sliding back and forth as if stuck on a loop. The repetitiveness was soothing, ordered, absorbing. The rest of the world seemed to fade to a dull, indistinguishable blur beyond the dazzling illumination of the design. When he moved his face closer to its surface, it got bigger, more enchanting. And when he pulled away, the pattern danced and shifted, growing smaller and daintier. Sound had vanished, in its place a cavernous silence that was inexplicably comforting.

He didn't know how long he'd been staring at the bedcover; time had lost all measure, all meaning. It was morning though, he was sure, but he didn't know how, or why.

Lifting a hand, he began studiously pressing his forefinger against the printed motif, eyes widening as the lines depressed and crinkled. How the hell had that happened? He found himself smiling at the discovery, at this new development that was so much more awesome than simply moving his head back and forth. He could _make_ the pattern change, just by touching it. Freakin' fantastic! Easing the pressure on his finger, he began to lightly follow the shape of the design, concentrating until the task had filled every cavity in his mind's catacombs. There was nothing beyond the pattern. The markings were like an indecipherable cryptogram, a hidden imperative buried somewhere in their depths. And if he just..._there_! If he just pressed down, _there_...yes. It all made sense. A purple squiggle writhed and squirmed beneath his commanding finger. The sense of power was heady and intoxicating.

He stuck his tongue out between his teeth as he followed a purple pathway to another orange spiral, frowning at the seriousness of his mission as he explored its compelling depths. It seemed to disappear into nothingness, the spiral, and Dean wondered vaguely whether he might fall in if he leaned over too far.

A faint sound hummed somewhere to his right, swelling and rippling, causing him to twitch and lose his place in the pattern. He _humphed_ out an irritated breath and wrinkled his nose as he tried to remember how far he'd travelled on the blanket. Carefully swirling his hand in the air just above the surface, he let his finger randomly fall, allowing it to determine his fate. He'd just have to start from the beginning, or the beginning was where he'd have to start, or...whatever.

The vibration was louder this time – somehow urgent, insistent – and so close to his freakin' ear that he almost jumped, but his finger had found its route once more, the bedspread a mapped atlas of possible journeys and opportunities. The choice was dizzying, bewildering. And utterly all encompassing. When his hand was suddenly removed from its expedition – foreign fingers curling around his wrist and lifting it forcibly from the bedcover – Dean felt an electrical charge sparking through him from head to toe. His arm spasmed involuntarily, the motion ripping his hand roughly from the grasp of its captor. "What the _hell_?" he growled, the rumble seeming to come from some deep, reservoir of primal frustration.

He leapt from the bed in a maelstrom of limbs, fist clenched and rigid as he instinctively swung towards the threat. There was a figure in front of him, he thought, but his senses were scattered, splintered into shards like a broken mirror – each fragment reflecting a different scene, a different picture – and he couldn't piece together who, or what the fuzzy shape was. When his fist continued unobstructed through thin air, he felt himself pitch forward, realising belatedly that he was on a collision course with the floor. It came as an incomprehensible surprise therefore, when the head-on smash was abruptly averted. He felt pressure on his shoulders, bracing him, pushing him back upright. He winced slightly as pain lanced a spiky trail upwards from the soles of his feet.

"Jesus, Dean!" What the–Sammy? Where the hell had his little brother come from? Dean had almost forgotten that there was a world beyond the quilted pattern, had almost deleted such details from awareness and interest. And concern.

Again. What the...?

Sam was talking again, his tone oscillating somewhere between angst and exasperation, Dean thought. But the words had started to dribble into each other, mixing and swirling like watery paints. The beginnings and ends were hard to make out, and Dean found himself frowning as the sounds continued to batter unintelligibly at his ear drum. Why couldn't he understand?

"Since when'd you learn to speak friggin' Swahili, dude?" He muttered in irritation, eyes finally locating Sam's features, the details loading too slowly onto his mental server, as if there had been a signal disruption somewhere in the connection. His brother was wearing his customary bitchface, that much the elder Winchester could make out from his limited topographical analysis.

"Dean..." That was better. That he could understand. Now if Sammy could just talk at that speed _all_ the time.

"What?" Dean whined, annoyed at his confusion, his disorientation. At Sam. The design had been predictable, regular, calming. Everything else was like standing still while a hurricane blew itself into a fury around him. And anyway, what was the kid so friggin' pissed about? All Dean had been doing was minding his own business, charting the bedspread.

There was a sigh, and Sam's expression changed – seemed to harden, if Dean squinted at him from an angle. "Dean, dude...It's late, and you need to get some rest." Well, at least his little brother had reverted to English. But _late_? _Rest_?

"What're you talkin' 'bout Sammy? I just got up! It's _morning_, dude!" He tossed Sam an incredulous, wide-eyed frown. Jeez, the kid was acting strange.

Sam seemed to stiffen, his mouth disappearing. He huffed out an impatient breath as he placed his hands on his hips with matronly sternness. "Dean...man, it's like eleven...at _night_. It's time to go to bed. Please, Dean."

"No way!" Dean took a step back – carefully, in deference to his painful feet – trying to calculate how far he'd need to travel to be safe from the radius of his brother's grasp, but miscalculating as Sam reached for him and easily pulled him forward once more. "Sam, what are you, crazy? What the hell's goin' on with you? I'm not goin' to bed, dude!"

Sam let his hands drop from his big brother's shoulders, and gestured emphatically towards the room's lone window, his voice rising in temperature as the flame of his frustration billowed outwards. "Dean, look outside. It's dark! It's night! You need to get some sleep. Jesus Dean, you were practically comatose when I brought you back here. How can you be so friggin' wide awake now?"

Dean swallowed heavily as something unwelcome and alien flickered briefly at the perimeter of his memory, as if an interloper, an intruder was trying to infiltrate its defences. There was the tiniest flicker of an image; a dark street, Sam, a shapeshifter, the glint of a silvery blade. Then it was gone, slithering away from the net of Dean's consciousness and back into the deep waters of oblivion. Whatever the trespasser had wanted, it had disappeared, empty-handed it seemed. But the image left him unsettled. It didn't make sense. What if Sam – his brother had been part of the strange picture – what if something had happened to him? It would certainly explain the kid's odd behaviour.

"Sam...are you feelin' okay? Somethin' happen?"

Several emotions seemed to dapple Sam's face in one flicker, and Dean knew he hadn't a hope of translating them all. Which was unnerving, but so not what he wanted to worry about right then. A curious mix of affectionate exasperation he knew he'd definitely seen, it was a regular feature in Sam's repertoire – along with sarcastic bitchface, pissed bitchface and disgusted bitchface. The kid knew how to do subtle. And that fact had never been more true than it was right then. There was something in Sam's eyes...guilt, maybe? But then _not_. Determination, but then...hesitation? Jeez, he was rambling.

"I'm fine, Dean. I'm okay, really." The reply was soft, warm like the glow of a winter fire. "But..."

He couldn't miss the hesitation that time.

"But, what?" Dean felt himself tense. "What's goin' on? What aren't you tellin' me?"

Sam seemed to flinch slightly, before hastening to reassure the elder hunter. "Hey, no, no, no, nothing's wrong! I just..." He gulped audibly, his Adam's apple convulsing in a way that was far from comforting. "I'm feeling a little off, I guess. It'd really...It'd really make me feel better if you just got some sleep, Dean. _Please_."

And dammit, but he'd never been able to ignore that look.

"Sam..." It had been all the resistance he could muster, but all of a sudden he wondered why he was bothering. If it would ease the taut lines of strain on his little brother's face, if it would make him feel better...And in any case, he was starting to feel sleep's tingling caress at the back of his neck, the grip slowly hardening until it began tugging at him, pulling him downwards. "All right," he sighed, limbs growing heavier, more cumbersome with every passing second. And then Sam was gently but firmly pushing him down onto the bed – the bed farthest from the door, he registered dimly, and would have objected if his mouth hadn't suddenly been filled with cotton wool.

"Come on," Sam didn't even gloat at the effortlessness of his victory, just prodded him persistently until he was lying flat, the covers he'd been so fascinated by just moments earlier being lifted to his chin with ruthless efficiency and tucked in with typical Sammy precision. Dean would almost certainly have complained about the babying, but sleep had a firm hold, and a deep, sluggish paralysis was seeping slowly upwards until even his brain felt heavy.

"Go to sleep, Dean."

He didn't need to be told twice.

o0o0o

Jud Hollis scrubbed a hand across his chin, fingers scratching absently against the prickly, greying stubble that grew in uneven clumps from a soil of ruddy skin. Absently, he cursed the bluntness of his razor as his eyes scanned the river of asphalt – sparkling eerily with the silvery glow of reflected moonlight – that meandered gently into the distance in rambling, placid sweeps. The stillness wouldn't last long though, the menacing, bulldozing wheels of his purloined SUV tyrannically scattering both pebbles and animals alike. The road was quiet, he'd only passed one, maybe two other cars since he'd left the main highway. Which suited his purpose all the better. That werewolf affair had been a nasty business, yet another narrow escape to add to the law enforcement tally. And Jud knew that he wasn't exactly inconspicuous.

Long, bleached locks and an upper body built like a chimney stack tended to be memorable.

So he'd deliberately opted for as many country roads and dirt tracks as he could find to take him to Peoria. A brief glance at the dash told him that he'd dawdled too long at the last service station, he was still several hours out from his destination. But the hour wasn't too late, and he was confident that he'd find a motel easily enough.

Jud sighed with a nicotine-tinged wheeze and leaned forward to fiddle with the radio. The damn thing had been stuck on Country for the last fifty miles, and no matter how much he poked and prodded, the receiver refused to pick up anything else. He flicked it off, deciding that silence was infinitely preferable. Reaching instead for the new packet of cigarettes he'd picked up at his last stop, he lit up and wound down the window, allowing the lacy wisps of smoke to trail out into the night.

Sucking in a long, delicious drag, he pondered his assignment. Gordon Walker had been beside himself when he'd called, as rattled and as furious as Jud had ever heard him. His one phone call, Gordon had said. But the younger hunter hadn't wanted his old friend to try and bust him out – well he _had_, but there had been something more important to him, something more pressing and vital than his own freedom. Instead, the incarcerated hunter had used his allotted time to pontificate interminably about the danger, evil and general irritativeness of one particular, demonic boy. The one who'd ensured his capture and subsequent imprisonment. The one over whom Gordon had been obsessing for months.

Sam Winchester. Son of a man Jud had always grudgingly respected, and one half of the infamous Winchester friggin' Dream Team that he'd always found cocky beyond belief – Dean especially. The elder of the two brothers had always been too pretty for the hunt, and too damn smug. Many times he'd have gladly made a Picasso masterpiece from a creative rearrangement of the elder Winchester's face, especially after what he'd done to Gordon, but fate had never brought them together at the right time. Jud was hoping he'd get his chance soon enough, especially since the likelihood of Dean sitting idly by while his brother was in danger was slim to none. Sam Winchester Jud hadn't particularly had a problem with. The kid had always seemed harmless enough, but if what Gordon said was true – and the hunter was beginning to believe that it _was_ – then Jud wouldn't have a problem putting a bullet through the younger man's skull.

He patted the faithful Taurus that sat snugly against his skin in its shoulder holster with affection, looking forward to feeling its satisfying weight in his grip, and imagining the jerk of its kick as he fired.

Gordon was an expert tracker, and even from behind bars he'd been able to tell Jud where the Winchesters were most likely to be. Something about a girl he'd seen Sam with; a girl who'd also apparently turned out to have strange...talents. Ava Wilson. Who had also conveniently disappeared from her home city of Peoria.

His old friend had been consumed by his pursuit of these strange freaks of nature for a while, Jud knew, these so-called _psychics_. He could remember the last time they'd shared a drink at the Roadhouse, the younger man prattling on about information he'd received from an exorcism he'd carried out down in Louisiana. _A coming war_, Gordon had insisted, swinging his half-empty glass around as he'd punctuated his point. And Sam Winchester was to be one of the humans to join the side of evil. Gordon had confided his plans, the research he'd carried out, the connections he'd used to confirm what he'd heard, his intention to kill the Winchester boy. Jud had listened with detachment, not really believing his friend's bold claims, but humouring him indulgently. And then the older man had gotten sidetracked by a nest of vampires in South Carolina, and had forgotten all about it.

But when Gordon had called, when he'd ended up in prison because of those two little pricks, Jud had begun to sit up and listen. According to his old friend, Dean hadn't even made much of an effort to deny that his brother was a freak, and that had been the clincher as far as Jud was concerned. There was clearly something _not right_ about the younger Winchester, and Jud intended to take up his friend's mantle. To finish the job.

And if he ended up taking down Dean Winchester too, all the better.

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear if you enjoyed... _


	9. 3 AM

Thank you from the bottom of my heart to everyone who took the time to review, favourite and alert. You all made my week! :)

This chapter is squeaky clean thanks to the hard work of the awesome Sharlot. I am more grateful than I can say for her time, effort and encouragement.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 9 – 3 AM**

Sam Winchester wasn't sure what had woken him.

The room was pitch dark around him, the stale air heavy and enveloping. He hadn't made it to morning, that much was clear. And the absence of a chilled layer of sweat, a brittle shakiness in his limbs and a churning nausea roiling around in his stomach probably ruled out a nightmare – along with the lack of gut-wrenchingly horrific after-images. Jess had stopped visiting him a long time ago, but more often than not it was his father, and _especially_ Dean that suffered the violence of his dreams. But no, there was nothing. He'd simply passed from slumber to wakefulness as innocuously as if he'd stepped through a doorway.

The atmosphere in the room felt...wrong...somehow – different in some subtle way that his senses had yet to fully elaborate – and he immediately tensed. Little, spidery tingles were crawling in droves along his exposed skin and in his growing foreboding he immediately snapped his gaze towards the bed beside him.

Towards the _empty_ bed beside him.

_Dammit, dammit, dammit!_

He'd been about to whip off the bedcovers and leap to his feet with an almost superhero, cape-billowing urgency when he suddenly heard it. He stiffened further, hands clutched in the thin fabric of the bedspread, stilling his lungs until the beat of his heart boomed deafeningly in his ears. It came out of the silence like a volley of snapping firecrackers. A frenetic rattling; clattering and jangling with panicked intensity. And harsh breathing now, he could hear from the other side of the room. Heavy, choked, desperate panting.

He let his eyes float shut for a moment of self-indulgent grief as his heart throbbed and tightened in his chest, before gingerly levering himself from the bed with aching slowness. "Dean?" He called out softly, voice just toeing the tightrope above a whisper, not wanting to do anything that might startle his big brother. Or at least, the person that he _thought_ was his big brother, friggin' _hoped_ was his big brother, and not whatever entity had infected and hurt him.

He might as well not have spoken, for the frenzied sounds continued unabated. Each metallic squeak seemed to send an icy finger poking into Sam's spine. It sounded like...like the door handle..._Ah crap!_ The door handle? Sam ground his teeth, tugging his bottom lip into his mouth to worry agitatedly at the delicate skin there. Dean was rattling the door handle, trying to escape again, that had to be it. Pushing aside the violently resurrected fear of just a few hours ago – when his befuddled brother had seemingly vanished without trace – Sam rounded his bed, creeping forward on the tips of his feet, trying not to wince as his bare soles protested the prickly carpet.

He paused as the jangling ceased, his molten body hastily cooling and solidifying as if the song had stopped on a game of musical statues – not that he'd ever gotten to play the game as a child, there being only two potential participants at any one time. "Dean?" The younger Winchester tried again with increased insistence, beginning to edge forwards once more as his brother's breathing hitched and juddered in the darkness with the rolling grind of a cement mixer. Sam reached a hand towards the light switch before withdrawing it hesitantly. The last thing he wanted to do was flood the room with light and spook his brother. Dean had already proven himself to be volatile enough.

The research Sam had managed to do after finally getting Dean settled in bed hadn't exactly been reassuring. Squinting against the feeble light of a flickering table lamp he'd unearthed from the wardrobe, of all places, Sam had looked up his brother's symptoms on the laptop. Going by Dean's notes, and the frighteningly clinical and unsympathetic information offered up by the various medical websites he'd perused, the young hunter had reluctantly confirmed what he'd already known anyway. And it wasn't looking good. A cursory glance at the local news site had told him that two further victims had died from the disease. Sam could remember Kevin Neilson and Regina Martin from Dean's notes, had been able to tell from his brother's abrupt script that Dean had been angry, determined, upset about their deteriorating condition. It would have distressed Dean enormously if he'd found out about it, if his world hadn't shrunk to the size of a bedspread.

Staggered by the magnitude of the task ahead of him and shaky from the burden of his fear, Sam had glanced over at this slumbering brother – light snores purring contentedly out from slackened lips as Dean snuggled further down underneath his beloved bedcover – barely even able to comprehend what was happening. It was as if his brother's very essence was being slowly eroded before his eyes, layers of _Dean_ being ruthlessly stripped away by the harsh winds of the disease. And it made Sam hurt in a way that was deeper and more piercing than any physical pain he'd ever suffered. Losing Dean altogether was unthinkable, but losing him and somehow keeping his shell was...it was a torment he couldn't even imagine.

Sam had risen from his chair to check and straighten the blanket at his brother's chin, the redundancy of the action doing nothing to deter him. He'd needed to do something, to look after the big brother who'd seemed to regress to the age of a small child underneath sleep's enchantment. He'd gently pushed back the tufts of spiky hair that had become flattened against Dean's forehead, lips twisting wretchedly as he'd fretted. The underhanded way that he'd gotten his brother to calm down and go to sleep had still hung like a heavy weight around his neck. He'd hated lying to Dean, taking advantage of his confusion, but it had been necessary. Dean had been so unlike himself. Watching his brother in his absorption with the bedspread had been like looking at an unmanned body. There had been motion, there had been life, but it hadn't been Dean behind the controls. Not really.

"Dean?" Sam blinked away the memory and tried again, worried still further by the continued lack of response from the elder hunter. Sam could make out his brother's shape now as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Dean was hunched into a punishing contortion, muscles wound tight like a ball of string as he jiggled the door handle once more. Moving into the sickly light cast by a flagging street lamp outside the window, Sam could easily discern the grimace on his big brother's face; the way his eyes were scrunched, the way the tendons on his neck stood out like rigid tree roots.

What was he going to do?

The eerie, glowing green numbers displayed by the alarm clock on the nightstand told him that it was nearing three. When Sam had spoken to Bobby earlier that evening, the older man had promised that he'd try to make the journey to Peoria in less time than the sixteen hours it was supposed to take. The younger Winchester had been more grateful than he could have put into words, not that Bobby would hear a word of Sam's stammering gratitude, grumbling something about _that stupid ass_ needing an entourage of babysitters to keep him from getting himself into trouble.

The veteran hunter had apparently been in Casper, Wyoming when Sam had called, dealing not with a 'friendly' ghost – and Sam hadn't been able to resist making the obvious joke, Dean being out of commission – but with a Skinwalker. Bobby's earthy, pragmatic voice had been like a balm to the younger Winchester's soul, the old adage about a problem shared turning out to be more than accurate. Not that he felt Dean's predicament had diminished in any way, but the simple knowledge that his old friend was coming to the rescue – a flicker of the old awe he'd always felt towards his surrogate uncle sparking into life – had been enough to bolster his resolve. Bobby had been his usual gruff self, but beneath the blustering pretence of his exasperated agreement, Sam had felt the concern radiating from the older man in waves of crackling heat. Their old friend cared for Dean a great deal, he knew, and if anyone could help him save his brother, it was Bobby. The ageing hunter hadn't wanted to waste time speculating about potential causes over the phone, instead promising that they'd figure it out when he got there. Sam wasn't dwelling on the fact that the older man might have made a vow he couldn't keep.

Sam paused mid-step in both thought and motion as Dean seemed to slump a little against the door, the elder Winchester laying the palm of his left hand against the smooth wood and allowing his head to bow dejectedly. Sam heaved an internal sigh of relief at the confirmation that double locking the door had prevented his brother from being able to exit. Who knew where Dean might have ended up if he'd been able to wander off while Sam slept?

Seeing Dean's forlorn pose, the younger man itched to reach out and touch his brother, to offer the comfort of his physical presence in some small way, but he forced himself to refrain, remembering Dean's uncontrolled violence towards him earlier that night. His brother was not himself, and Sam had to keep remembering that, to keep chanting it internally like a mantra. The silence lasted for all of five seconds before Dean suddenly whirled to face him. It took every ounce of Sam's restraint not to flinch in surprise at the unexpected movement. He opened his mouth to say something – though he hadn't quite worked out what – when Dean beat him to it.

"Dammit, he's gone! I dunno what happened, I swear. I just woke up, and he was gone," Dean took a step from the door, eyes a kaleidoscope of emotions as he gazed up at Sam. Even in the gloom, the younger man could see panic swirling into a twisted pattern with guilt and remorse, the arrangement only too familiar to a little brother who'd seen it too many times. But there was something else...several something's if Sam looked closely enough. There was a grim acceptance he could see now, as if Dean had confirmed a fear, intertwined with a submissive culpability. His brother's eyes were tentative, cringing away from Sam's gaze any time they collided. Dean had sounded devastated, the apology and self-recrimination only too obvious from the timbre of his voice.

Sam's own eyes widened, the realisation abruptly dawning that Dean was not talking to his little brother, that Dean wasn't even seeing _him_. The sense of disorientation and loss was suddenly overwhelming, as if he'd woken in a wilderness with no map or compass. His connection with his big brother was always something he had been able to rely on, even when they disagreed, even when they argued. There had been times when words hadn't even been necessary, the sense of his presence alone being enough. But here, now...he didn't know what he was going to do, how he was going to get through to his brother.

"Dean–" he tried, voice croaky as head battled against heart for the right words, but the sound wavered into nothingness at his brother's quiet murmur.

"I think he left."

The admission was a tiny huff of resigned breath, the small nod and self-deprecating quirk of the lips that followed so unbearably sad that Sam felt his throat close over. He tried to swallow against it, but the choking sensation only seemed to worsen. Damn. He hadn't thought...well, he _had_, but he just hadn't...Sneaking out that night he'd been so fuelled by self-righteousness, by anger, and it hadn't been until Dean's outburst after they'd arrived in Peoria that he'd really thought about what it would have been like for his brother to find him gone. And even then, Dean's defensive rebuke had hidden so much.

The elder hunter lowered his chin in shame, apparently taking the silence as an expected sign of disapproval and disappointment. "I think he left," he repeated more softly still, lids dropping to half-mast and denying Sam the chance to see what was in their depths. Dean's smile was bitter, pained, before it tightened into a fearful line. "His stuff's gone. But there's no note. I dunno if somethin' took him or not, but he's gonna get himself in trouble. We gotta go find him!"

_Dammit, Dean!_ Sam berated internally, well aware that it wasn't his brother he was really angry at. He didn't want to see this, to hear it. Didn't want Dean to _feel_ it. "I–" he began again, not sure whether he was aiming for apology or explanation, despite the fact that his brother still didn't even recognise him. But once more his attempt was useless.

"I'm sorry...I'm sorry, Dad."

_Oh, Jesus, no. Anything but that. _Sam wanted to yell, but his vocal chords seemed to be paralysed in a silent scream. He didn't...He _couldn't_...No. There was no way he would be able to do this, to pretend to be his father, to play along. No. But Dean was stepping closer now, still staring up at him with an expression that managed to seem both imploring and cowering at the same time.

"I know you told me to look out for him, Dad. And I know I promised...I'd have done anything...I tried, Dad. I tried. But I couldn't do it. I couldn't protect him. This is my fault."

The emotions were too raw, too long buried, too explosive. And all Sam wanted to do was clamp his hands over his ears and scream himself hoarse until he could no longer hear his brother's broken voice. He didn't want to listen to this, knew _Dean_ would never have wanted him to hear it. This was too much, his brother's private anguish mixing with his own fear and anger and worry and...guilt. But like what he'd been forced to listen to during the walk back to the Impala earlier that evening, Sam knew he wouldn't be able to stop it. Didn't mean he wasn't going to try.

"Dean, man, it's okay. It's _me_. It's _Sam_," he ground out as forcefully as he could, the small glimmer of an idea shining a hopeful light into the darkness in his soul. This had to work. He raised his cast-covered arm. "Look, Dean! Look, you know Dad never broke his hand, his wrist, his arm..." He huffed in frustration. "Look, dammit! It's me! Remember when I broke my hand? Angela, the zombie girl? C'mon, man!"

But Dean's eyes barely flickered, blankly staring through Sam's arm as if it was nothing more than thin air. "I'm sorry I failed, Dad. You trusted me with one thing, and I failed. I had one job..._one_ job." A lone tear bloomed from the corner of one eye, time seeming to stop as Sam watched it slowly drip down onto his brother's cheek and weave a zig-zag trail downwards.

How one tear could be worse than the many his big brother had sobbed out the previous morning, Sam didn't know. But somehow it was. "I'm not Dad, Dean," his own words were thick with the build-up of unshed tears, but he had to keep control. He had to be the strong one for once. "It's okay, I swear. I'm here, Dean. I'm not going anywhere."

There was the briefest of moments when Sam thought he'd made a breakthrough, that Dean had really heard _him_ and not the John Winchester of the delusion he appeared to be in the midst of. But then his big brother seemed to draw himself upwards, the planes of his features beginning to sharpen as all reticence, all submissiveness vanished and the tear track evaporated from his cheek. The danger Dean now exuded was palpable, and Sam felt himself grow taut as he remembered the way his brother had scowled at him downtown all those hours earlier. He set his jaw, preparing for an attack, lowering himself into the defensive stance that would least likely result in his brother being hurt.

He was completely unprepared for Dean's next outburst.

"But how could you do it, huh?" The elder Winchester's eyes were suddenly bulging in their sockets, a storm cloud of rage passing over his gaze and blocking out all light. He was practically spitting now, a snarling fury mangling his lips. "How could you put this on my shoulders? You musta known I'd fail! But you left, you upped and _died_ and left me with this freakin' bombshell! How could you tell me that, huh? That I might have to kill him? I had to lie to him all this time–" Dean abruptly bit off the rest of whatever he'd been about to say, shaking his head with a derisive snort.

Sam felt the whole world shift around him, moving past him at lightning speed, a rushing sound filling his ears. This was...he had no words for this. All the things he'd said to his big brother, all the self-righteous jibes and barbs he'd tossed around in his own indulgent anger: _Only that the two of you seem to think that you have final say over my life, Dean! Dad tells you that you might have to kill me, and instead of actually sharing this with me you decide that your promise to him is more important_. His insides squirmed as he remembered the way Dean had looked at him that day, during their fight in the motel room. He'd never thought, had never truly imagined what his father's revelation might have done to Dean, what it might have been like for his big brother to hear that. And then for their father to walk away and die...God, it had never been about keeping a vow of silence to the Winchester patriarch – about keeping Sam in the dark – Dean's promise had only been for him, for his little brother. To protect him, to save him. It had never been about trusting their father more, about the two of them conspiring for control over Sam's life and future.

Damn.

"And then you go and sacrifice yourself for me. You die and I live," Dean was continuing in the background to Sam's epiphany, the laugh acidic, almost savage, and the younger Winchester felt its claws rip and shred at his heart. "You sonofabitch. Savin' _Sam_ shoulda been the most important thing, and you go and blow all that for _me_? You coulda kept him safe. But you had to go and waste your life on me."

The elder Winchester took several steps towards Sam, stopping only when they were almost toe to toe. Dumbfounded, Sam could only stare back at his brother, mouth agape with a horror he couldn't even begin to wrap his mind around. Dean had always been a locked box, the odd secret slipping out here and there when Sam applied his most skilful of lock-picking techniques. But this? What his brother had been keeping hidden in his emotional vault all this time...Sam didn't know how Dean was still standing.

Oh, right. Him. Dean did it all for him, was _still_ doing it all for him. And wasn't that humbling realisation just gouging Sam's gaping chasm of guilt ever deeper? He couldn't stand it any longer, he had to try and find some way to ease his brother's distress.

"It wasn't a waste, Dean. Could never...And it's not your fault," he murmured softly, knowing his brother had heard him when the elder hunter's eyes snapped to meet his. There was an aching yearning blazing from their core that Sam couldn't bring himself to look at. "Sam, he uh, he made a mistake, Dean. He didn't mean to leave, didn't realise that you were just trying to look out for him."

Sam closed his eyes, hating himself for his next lie. He'd only be able to get through it if he couldn't see Dean's face. "Sam, he called. He's fine. He's coming back soon."

"He called?" Dean echoed, anger disappearing to leave a voice so small it was practically apologising for its own existence. The hope blossomed further, and Sam gritted his teeth, cursing himself with every foul word he knew. But he had to get his brother calm, had to settle him. The rollercoaster of emotions they'd just ridden had left him trembling, dizzy and nauseous. And if that was how he was feeling, how much worse was it for his big brother? Dean, who no longer had the control over himself that Sam did.

Sam nodded, not trusting his voice.

"He's okay?"

Another nod.

"And he's comin' back soon?"

The affirmation was more of a jerk this time, Sam holding everything of himself in a tight knot, terrified that it would all fall apart if he let go of just one strand.

"Dad..." Dean began, brow twitching as he self-consciously lowered his gaze to the carpet.

"Yeah, Dean?" Oh god, this was too hard.

"Why'd you do it? Why'd you sacrifice yourself for me?" The elder hunter kept his head facing downwards, tensing as if bracing himself for the answer. As if afraid of the answer. Sam found himself fighting the desperate urge to duck his head around Dean's protective stance, to see what his brother was trying to keep at bay. But this privacy Sam had to allow him, everything else had been ripped from him without his permission.

_Because he loved you, you stupid jerk!_ Sam wanted to yell, wanted to grab Dean's shoulders and shake hard until his brother saw the sense of it. But he pulled back on the reins, knowing that now was not the right time. But Jesus, the fact that Dean didn't even know, hadn't even _guessed_...Love was not a word that existed explicitly in the Winchester vocabulary. It had always been conveyed and shown in millions of tiny, multi-faceted ways, its definition too vast, too nuanced to be delivered in just one word. How did one count the number of grains on a sandy beach?

But Sam knew he had to try to get the message out in a way that his muddled brother would understand, would listen to if not actually accept. And he knew just what to say, knew because it sprung only too readily to his lips. "Because I'd rather die than let anything happen to you," and as he said it, he knew it was true, not just of their father, but of himself. Role-playing be damned.

Sam watched as Dean's forehead seemed to crinkle and release in several rapid bursts, but he said nothing, trying to give his brother the space he needed in any small way he could. He maintained his silence as Dean scrubbed a hand across his eyes and sniffled, had to lock both jaw and limbs to stop himself from intervening. But Dean could turn at any second, mood leaping from station to station like a friggin' bullet train. So Sam waited – arms tightly hugging his chest to keep them from reaching out – for the moment that Dean would lift his face once more.

"Okay...son," the endearment seemed to scrape past his lips with a physical spike of pain. "Go back to bed. Sam will be back in the morning."

When Dean would have protested, Sam reluctantly pulled out his trump card, knowing he was in for a sleepless night of guilty self-recrimination once he'd achieved his objective. "That's an order, Dean!"

Instantly, the elder Winchester drew his shoulders back and straightened, always the conditioned response to a harsh bark from his father. "Yes, sir."

Sam stood back to let his brother pass as Dean shuffled unsteadily back towards his bed – the farthest from the door, Sam noted with involuntary interest; the unexpected insight into how his father and brother had hunted together now bitterly unwelcome, when in months gone by he would have given anything for the knowledge. Forgetting his role once more, he couldn't help but go to his brother after Dean had lain down, tucking him in as he had earlier in the night. Dean didn't seem to notice his _father's_ uncharacteristic tenderness, eyelids opening and closing with ever decreasing speed as he goggled sleepily upwards at Sam. "Dad?" His voice was sounding more slurred, exhaustion slowly distorting his ability to form coherent words.

"Yeah, Dean?"

"Tell Sammy when he gets back..." there was a long pause, so long in fact, that Sam began to wonder if Dean had dozed off mid-sentence. "Tell him I'm sorry."

Once he was sure his brother had slipped under, Sam turned and bolted for the bathroom.

o0o0o

"There is a house in New Orleans...they _caaaaallllll_ the Risin' Son!"

Sam rubbed his eyes for what seemed like the millionth time, and still no moisture would permeate his dried out pupils. Too many hours of anxious wakefulness had robbed them of focus and clarity, the room around him blurring with a hazy fog that seemed to shift and flicker like a spectre. His psychedelic surroundings seemed to undulate in lurid pulses, throbbing in time to the painful metronome in his aching temples. And Dean's yowling attempt to serenade the room wasn't helping.

The young hunter glanced down at the papers strewn across the surface of the room's rickety table, trying to see if he'd missed anything in their depths, but the pages seemed to sprawl out before him like a foreign map. He knew the route he needed was there somewhere, but the sense of enormity and disorientation was almost overwhelming. He looked up at Bobby with a helpless frown and shrugged.

"And that's it?" Bobby asked with knee-jerk incredulity, wincing as he saw Sam's face fall at the perceived reprimand. Seeming to realise the younger Winchester's desolation, he cleared his throat and levelled his tone – an effort rendered useless by the requirement to raise his voice to make himself heard over the background caterwauling. "That's all you got so far?"

"And god...I know...I'm _one_!" Dean continued to belt out, eyes closed as he swayed in time to the music playing through his headphones. Even on the other side of the room, propped up against the headboard of the furthest bed, the racket was still loud enough to make Sam cringe.

"I've kinda had my hands full here, Bobby!" The younger Winchester emphatically retorted with spread palms, easily matching his old friend's concerned frustration and raising him several bucket-loads. He understood how Bobby felt, knew that the veteran hunter wasn't apportioning blame or censure. But the words had resonated with his own reproachful ruminations, somehow endorsing them, ratifying them.

"My mother was...a _tailor_...She _sewed_ my new blue _jeans_!" Dean bellowed tunelessly to fill the pause in conversation, enthusiastically picking at the strings of a nonexistent guitar.

"I know, I know," Bobby murmured absently after eyeing Sam carefully for a beat, nodding with reluctant acceptance. He'd tried to hide it, but the older man had been utterly floored when he'd first laid eyes on the elder Winchester upon his arrival. Dean hadn't even noticed Bobby's entrance – was still oblivious to the veteran hunter's presence, in fact – wrapped snugly in his musical cocoon. Bobby had stood in the doorway for almost a whole minute. Just staring. Sam hadn't been able to get a clear look at his friend's face, but he hadn't really needed to. The hushed breath and rigid set to the older man's shoulders had been more than enough. And that was the moment that Sam had really realised how deep in the hole they were. He'd known his brother was in trouble, but many of the signs had been so subtle that he hadn't felt the shock of seeing the extent of Dean's deterioration in the same black and white contrast that Bobby had.

Sam watched his friend covertly from behind hooded lids, biting his lip fretfully as he waited expectantly for the elder hunter to snap his fingers flamboyantly and pull some kind of magical solution out of the bag. Any minute now, it was going to happen. _Any_ minute. Bobby – unaware of his young friend's lofty expectations – was frowning pensively, eyes jerking from side to side as if reading from an imaginary page of wisdom, before a particularly large whoop from Dean caused him to grimace and shoot the elder Winchester a sardonic glance. "Ah hell, I can't friggin' hear myself think! Can't you do anything to shut up _Mariah_ over there?"

Despite the quick-step his heart had been tapping out for the past hour, despite the way his taut muscles thrummed with the vibration of his anxiety, despite the way his lungs were flapping like deflated balloons, Sam smirked. Couldn't help himself. He raised his eyebrows at his exasperated friend, the silent _'Really?'_ in his expression blaring out loud and clear. The defensive "What?" he received in return only served to draw his lips wider, and he let out a soft chuckle before clearing his throat and sobering with a one-shouldered shrug. The gesture was nonchalant, but Sam could feel despair sinking his palpitating heart like a stricken ship, an unreasonable disappointment at Bobby's lack of miracle-working striking at its hull. "He's been playing it on repeat. Started going on about that voodoo gig he had in New Orleans before he picked me up at Stanford." Sam explained with a shallow sigh, running his fingers over the growing stubble on his chin in distracted agitation. "Music was the only way I could get him to shut up about it."

"My father was a gamblin' man...down in New _Orleans_!" Dean was wailing stridently as Sam spoke, punching his fist heartily into the air above his head as a cocky grin spread viscously across his face.

Sam had been at the point of utter desperation when he'd practically hurled his ipod at Dean an hour – was it only an hour? – earlier. His big brother had gotten himself snagged on a loop tape of interminably annoying phrases, their delivery slowly becoming more and more manic in rhythm as the morning wore on, Dean growing in agitation until he'd eventually found an outlet in pacing jerkily from bathroom to bed. It had started as soon as his big brother had woken at the crack of dawn, the burgeoning sun barely a streak of shimmering fire on the horizon. Dean had leapt from his bed, flicking from zero to wide-awake within the time it took for a jaded Sam to blink in surprise. He'd moved with purposeful intensity, striding over to where his duffel sat in the corner and decisively upending it onto the floor. Apparently not finding what he'd been looking for among the scattered items, he'd groaned in frustration and immediately changed course for the door. And that was where Sam had stepped in, his startled inertia finally giving way to weary intervention.

Dean had been looking for one of his voodoo mojo bags. _Of course he had_, Sam had sarcastically berated himself for not having guessed. It had seemed important, Dean muttering over and over about having only ten minutes..._ten minutes_...ten minutes, _dammit! _And when, in a fit of apathetic exasperation – and having no idea of the can of worms he was opening – Sam had stupidly decided to ask his brother what he could possibly have wanted with a mojo bag, he'd been treated to detailed run through of Dean's entire New Orleans experience. Repeatedly. Yes, that guy had been one crazy dude. One _crazy _sonofabitch. Crazy, Sammy, crazy. Yeah, Sam had gotten the idea after the first fifty recitals. But that had apparently been nothing compared to what Dean had gotten up to at the Bourbon Street strip clubs. And Jesus...Sam didn't even want to _mentally_ review the particulars of that story, but it had been seared into his brain by Dean's rote, graphic descriptions.

Sam had tried cajoling, he'd tried the television, he'd even promised _pie_. Nothing had worked. Nothing would lure Dean from lapping the same neurological circuit. And, shakily high from a potent concoction of jittery fear and lack of sleep, Sam had lost his rag. All thoughts of personal safety aside, he'd forcibly manhandled his brother down onto the bed, grabbed his ipod and had jammed the headphones none too gently into Dean's ears. He'd pressed play on a random song after flicking to the playlist he'd put together especially for his big brother – Dean having complained bitterly about Sam's lack of _classics_ the last time he'd scrolled through the songs. And hadn't it just been Sam's friggin' luck that the song would happen to be the friggin' _Animals_ and that Dean would have retained enough sense to be able to put that damn song on friggin' repeat. If Sam ever heard it again it would be too friggin' soon. But then again...

"At least he's happy..." Sam murmured with a fondness he couldn't hide and twisted in his chair so that he could more easily appraise Dean's condition. Exhaustion dragged heavily at the stoicism he'd been trying to project ever since Bobby had arrived fifteen minutes earlier as his eyes swept over his big brother's reclining form, scanning the contented smile on Dean's face as if he was committing it to memory. Maybe he was. He hadn't seen his brother grin so uninhibitedly for a long time, and was terrified he'd never see it again. The younger Winchester hadn't allowed himself to sleep since he'd gotten Dean back to bed in the small hours; the acrid taste of vomit in his mouth, the gnawing grind of the guilt in his gut, and the hailstorm of fear that pelted every conscious thought more than capable of fuelling his insomnia. He'd sat in the darkness, eyes tracking the gentle rise and fall of Dean's chest, tormenting himself with the fear that his brother's lungs might cease to function in a matter of days – or was it now mere hours? – if he didn't stop whatever this disease was. And now, after all the angst, all the drama, all the upheaval of the previous twenty-four hours...the simple act of seeing his brother's pleasure was almost his undoing.

"Yeah, and I'm about to find out what a mouth fulla lead tastes like!" Bobby tossed back, miming a cocked gun with his fingers and rolling his eyes with an exasperated affection that neatly cut through Sam's brooding. The younger man puffed out a soft breath, knowing exactly what his surrogate uncle was up to, and more grateful for the intervention than he could say. He needed to stay in control, Dean was depending on him. He couldn't let sentimentality be his distraction.

"Well, the way he's going at it now, the battery will probably die soon. _Then_ you'll have trouble on your hands," Sam muttered with a mirthless smirk, his tone buoyant with ostensible levity, but his meaning held simmering fathoms of swirling darkness beneath the surface. He squished his eyes closed, needing to focus, to concentrate. He willed away the sound of his brother's screeching karaoke, banishing it from the realm of conscious attention, and turned back towards Bobby, who was shaking his head in disbelief.

"Remind me again why I signed up to play Nurse Ratched?" The older hunter parried with a wry smile before straightening his features and reaching for Dean's dog-eared notebook. His eyes lost any hint of brightness as they began perusing the contents, beginning to fill instead with a cavernous concern that made Sam feel suddenly uncomfortable – as if he was intruding on a private grief. He averted his eyes and allowed them to wander the room. He'd spent a large portion of his solitary vigil the previous night chewing over the clues Dean had collected, remembering again just how superficial an investigation his big brother had carried out before leaping into the line of fire. A vengeful spirit had seemed convincing, but Sam hadn't found any hint of spectral activity at the abandoned care home, despite where the evidence had pointed. By Dean's logic, this ought to have been a simple salt and burn, but Sam was starting to face the very real possibility that they were missing something important. No matter what inferential trajectory he took, he kept being drawn back to the dementia. It was so odd...a ghost killing like that.

"You ever hear of a ghost with dementia, Bobby?" Sam queried, picking conscientiously at the bent edge of one of his own pages of scribbles, not sure if he was trying to level it out or tear it off. For some time now, the young hunter had been wondering why a ghost seeking revenge would bother with the slow burn. Why infect its victims with a disease rather than opting for the convenience kill? Bobby swivelled his gaze to meet Sam's, finger pausing on the page of Dean's notebook that it had been scrolling along. "Aside from ghost sickness, no. And if that were the case then the EMF would be screamin' right about now. No. And this ain't soundin' like no ghost I ever come across before. I think we need to cast our net wider."

Sam felt his stomach take a nosedive. Other possibilities? No. It had to be something simple, something they could find and excavate and salt and burn so that Dean would be okay again. He leaned forward in his seat, earnestly beginning to list off the clues on the fingers of his uninjured hand. "But it's classic vengeful spirit territory, right? Violent deaths...perpetrators being the first ones targeted–"

"No EMF at the location of the deaths...No haunted objects," Bobby picked up Sam's sentence with a deep, frowning negation. "No ghost has arms this long, Sam. The only link we have between Dean and everyone else is that damn home, and it's clean. How in the hell is some brainless spirit reachin' out to all these people?"

Wilfully undeterred, Sam shook his head. "But what if it's...confused? What if it's trying to get some sort of message across, only its wires keep getting screwed up? Maybe it's going after the wrong people...or–"

"Same point still stands," The older man interrupted once more, scraping his fingers across the bristles of his thick beard with a scratching sound that even Dean's howling couldn't fully obscure. "How could it be killin' all these people from afar? How did friggin' _bats-in-the-belfry_ over there even catch its attention in the first place? It don't make a lick o' sense. We need to find a link somewhere. Do we know how all the victims are connected?"

Sam pinched the bridge of his nose with forefinger and thumb as the throbbing in his head seemed to augment at the barrage of questions. "Uh, the first three were all people who worked at that care home. They were all under suspicion of murder, but then the charges were dropped after the case got sidelined. It looks like Dean thought some kind of corruption was involved. I, uh, I don't know about the others. Dean didn't really get that far. And as for how he managed to trip this thing's trigger...it's not like Dean's been exactly honest about all of this. It could have been anything, _anywhere_. There's nothing else in his notes that gives us anything to go on." He shot his brother a mournful glance. "And it's not like we can just ask him now."

Bobby was regarding him steadily, concerned eyes easily reading Sam's dismay. He shook his head, lifting his cap to run calloused fingers through the thinning hair that thatched his crown. Replacing the cap with a sigh, he silently contemplated the still warbling elder Winchester from shuttered eyes. "This ain't like your idjit of a brother, Sam. Doin' sloppy work like this. Doin' it _alone_," He murmured thoughtfully before blowing a noisy huff of air out through his nostrils, seeming to come to a decision. "Somethin' you wanna tell me, Sam? This have anything to do with that disappearin' act you pulled a few days ago?"

Sam found himself squirming underneath the sudden heat in his friend's stare, casting his eyes about the room for anything less uncomfortable than coming face to face with Bobby's laser beam of disapproval. Involuntarily, they settled on a bopping Dean, before jarring away once more in guilty retreat, tail between their legs. Returning his attention reluctantly to Bobby, he chewed his lips for a moment. "How did you, uh, find out about that?"

"Well I realised _somethin'_ was up after the first five, six...million times your brother called," Bobby replied, deadpan.

Sam nodded, blinking rapidly as he took a steadying breath. "Should've figured. Dean and I, we, uh, had a difference of opinion." He almost laughed at the inadequacy of his own euphemism. "It's a long story," he continued, in no way desiring to go into detail, knowing that telling someone else would only serve to highlight his own sense of culpability, that externalising and laying down all his actions would make his mistakes even more unbearable. "We don't have time for that right now. Dean...he's dying, Bobby. I don't even know how long he's got."

Sam swallowed thickly as his friend continued to scrutinise him from across the table-top, and not for the first time, the younger Winchester felt Bobby's probing eyes delving more deeply than he would have liked. But then the older man's gaze softened, and he nodded, signalling the end of his inspection. "All right. So if we're gonna figure this out, we need to start with the victims. We need to follow Dean's trail, but stick to the friggin' _path_ this time. I've got some calls I can make, see if this rings anyone's bells."

The young hunter felt a tiny sapling of hope begin to take root, planted and sown by the older man's almost indomitable aura of confidence and ease. Bobby always knew what to say, what to do. "Right. You watch him, and I'll go and see what I can shake loose with this," Sam agreed, holding up a slightly faded CDC card and smiling sheepishly at both photo and moniker. Bobby's gaze flicked towards a still boisterous Dean, and he snorted quietly. It had been the only identification Sam could find that would suit his purpose. Somehow he didn't think _bikini-inspector_ would cut it anymore. But then again, he knew he was going to have a hard time living up to his 'Sam Kuryakin' cover. The younger Winchester gritted his teeth as he remembered the first time Dean had showed him their newest batch of cards, cackling manically at the expression of deepest disdain on his little brother's unimpressed face. _"Even you can't get away with 'Dean Solo,"_ Sam had scoffed derisively, cringing at the triteness of his brother's sense of humour. _"Why not?"_ Dean had queried with a cocky flash of teeth. _"I'm in charge, I get all the women, _and_ I'm the handsome one."_ Sam had sneered at that, before brightening suddenly as a thought struck him. _"Yeah, well, everyone knows Kuryakin was the smart one."_ Surprisingly, his big brother hadn't argued, had merely shrugged and moved away.Even now, Sam pondered that one.The card's flattering photograph Dean had managed to capture mid-snore, Sam's lips curling and quirking with near _Elvis_ panache. All in all, utterly humiliating. But he had nothing better, so he'd have to run with it.

He fingered the card absently, twisting it to and fro as he procrastinated fretfully. He wasn't above admitting to himself that he didn't want to leave Dean. Even now, with Bobby of all people there to watch his brother's back, Sam could feel himself begin to waver. Maybe he shouldn't go, maybe–

"Sam?" Bobby clicked his fingers snappily before the younger Winchester's dazed eyes, shooting him a knowing look when he saw Sam's awareness sharpen. "We ain't gonna get far if you're gonna start actin' like an anxious mother leavin' her kid at kindergarten for the first time."

The younger man smirked reluctantly as he acknowledged the truth of Bobby's assessment with a slow nod. "Yeah...Just, uh, just look after him, huh?"

"We'll figure this out, Sam."

Yes, they would. Because Sam Winchester was _not_ losing his big brother.

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts..._


	10. Madness to the Method

Hi everyone!

I want to say an _enormous_ thanks to everyone who took the time to review, favourite and alert. You're all awesome! :)

Sharlot has my undying gratitude for taking time out of her day to work her beta charm on this chapter. I'm so glad I've had the privilege of returning the favour on her amazing story _Dust Devils_. If you haven't already, I'd highly recommend checking it out! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 10 – Madness to the Method**

Sam clamped his eyes closed and bit down harshly on the forefinger of his uninjured hand, swallowing back the scream of molten frustration threatening to erupt from the simmering magma of despair that had settled in his gut. But he didn't dare let it out, knew that once he started he'd never stop. His chest heaved with the effort of suppressing his primal howl, and it wasn't until after several frozen seconds of suspended thought, his focus purely on the steady rhythm of his heart, that Sam finally felt able to open his eyes.

He caught sight of the deep, purpling teeth-marks on his finger as he raised a hand to scrape through his hair. There was no blood, but the force of his own restrained panic was almost definitely going to bruise.

Sucking in a harsh breath that seemed to finally blast the cobwebs from his mind, he cast a sullen glance at the notepad that lay discarded on his lap. Its contents would do absolutely nothing to help him, their scrawled pages coming to represent little more than a devastatingly wasted morning. Not bothering with even a cursory review of his notes, he thrust the pad dismissively down onto the Impala's empty passenger seat, wincing at the papery splat that followed. Sam had been trying to ignore the gaping space next to him as the hours had worn on, but it seemed that despite Dean's absence, his big brother had never been so friggin' _present_. The younger Winchester had found himself tossing glances towards thin air, even starting conversations with a phantom Dean. On more than one occasion he'd headed automatically for the passenger side of the Impala, before realising with a ringing pang that there was no one but him to take the wheel.

Sam had hunted alone before, or at least, he'd done solo legwork on hunts more times than he could count. Hell, even a few days ago he'd investigated Scott Carey's murder without his big brother at his side. It had felt strange then, guiltily liberating, like skipping out on school – though he'd only really ever done that at his family's behest. But now...now it was like the unoccupied spot beside him had come to mean more than just his brother's physical absence. Dean could have been riding co-pilot, but he'd have been there in body alone.

The young hunter sighed softly, reaching forward to start the Impala's engine. The Chevy's growl seemed to bellow outwards with a confidence that Sam couldn't share, the dejection at encountering brick wall after frustratingly impenetrable brick wall seeming to wither at his determination like an unyielding desert furnace. Dean had always appeared to have reserves of strength that he held, cactus-like, beneath his skin. Reserves of strength that had been, admittedly, dwindling of late. But still, Sam wanted desperately to be like his brother, to use his fear to fuel the pistons of his determination, but something had gone wrong in the mechanics; the engine was failing.

Sam had started with Norman Evans, husband of the first victim to succumb to the disease. A gruff, bumbling man with flapping lips and a perpetual cough that crackled sickeningly with mucus, Norman hadn't been able to tell Sam much beyond the story of how his wife's condition had deteriorated. Yes, she'd been under investigation by the police for what had gone on at that _house of incontinent crackpots. _But no, she'd done nothing wrong. Moira had done nothing but care for these _raving lunatics. _And in any case, what did anyone care if a bunch of _nutjob_ _coffin dodgers_ finally met their maker? Sam had winced his way through Norman's diatribe, fingers twitching with the itchy urge to wring the man's neck. But then he'd forced himself to remember that the older man was a grieving widower. The young hunter had gulped back his righteous anger, allowing the blithering man to continue with his story, desperate for any stray crumb of useful information. One of the many mistakes he'd made since this mess had started. A whole hour had passed by in Norman Evans' vacuum of a living room before Sam had even realised. A whole hour of Dean's precious life. And Sam knew nothing of how, or where, or from whom Moira had been infected. The only oddity Norman had noted had been an unexplained absence of several hours when Moira had gone shopping, a day or maybe two before she'd started to _lose her marbles_. She'd insisted nothing had happened however, and so Norman had shrugged and let it lie. Sam had just shaken his head internally, knowing he wasn't exactly in a position to judge. If he'd only paid more attention himself...

It had been a similar train wreck at the house of Sarah and George Carruthers, parents of the second victim, James. Train-cars had started to derail almost the instant Sam had entered through the front door, wheels screeching and alarms blaring as the young hunter recognised the futility of trying to penetrate the Carruthers' kevlar-strength, rose-coloured spectacles. According to his doting and devastated parents, James had been practically canonised as a saint. The boy might as well have been performing life-saving operations and curing cancer. And, after seeing that the entire living room had been turned into a shrine for their lost child – photographs and childhood mementos cluttering every available surface – Sam hadn't been able to bring himself to mar what solace they had. Through brief gaps in their eulogising, the younger Winchester had been able to establish that there were no obvious links between James and Moira besides their mutual workplace. No unexplained disappearances – although the couple admitted that their son often came and went at odd hours. Nothing that remotely related to Dean. Another dead end.

The third victim, Evelyn Smith hadn't had any family in the area, and a brief poll of the neighbours on the same floor as her one bedroom apartment had revealed her to be an unpleasant loner. It was clear that she'd made no friends in the block, and – in the words of the young newlyweds next door, people hadn't exactly been beating a path to her door. Nobody had known of Evelyn's developing dementia until after a small fire had caused the entire building to be evacuated. The source of the blaze had been the woman's stove, merrily sizzling away in the background while she'd sat in her bedroom, plucking the down feathers from her quilt. Another fruitless avenue, another blockade on Sam's path.

The police detective who'd spearheaded the abandoned care home investigation had led Sam up yet another blind alley. Robert Kingston had apparently taken an extended leave of absence from work after all the furore, citing stress and depression. Like Evelyn he'd lived alone, and nobody that Sam interviewed at the detective's station – nor any of his neighbours – knew anything about what he'd been doing, or where he'd been since, until he'd made a frantic 911 call days later. Instead of finding the expected armed intruder, the officer's colleagues had found him barricaded behind an overturned sofa and splintered coffee table, wide-eyed and muttering unintelligibly. The house had been otherwise empty. Sam knew the feeling.

He had nothing.

Unbidden, images of Dean flashed before his eyes. His big brother staring sadly at him from across the room in Rivergrove, preparing to go down with Sam because he couldn't bear to go on without him...Dean's hands holding him steady after another vision threatened to cleave his head in two...Dean cackling evilly as a disgruntled Sam battled with the bedcovers that his big brother had mischievously short-sheeted...Dean wailing along with AC/DC in the Impala, nudging Sam incessantly with his elbow until his little brother gave in and joined in too. The younger Winchester swallowed past the tightening constriction in his throat, choking against the emotion that was suddenly garrotting him. He couldn't lose Dean, he just couldn't. Sam gripped the Impala's wheel tighter, gritting his teeth as he felt his resolve suddenly surge once more. He wasn't going to give up. No way. The answer would lie with the newer victims, it had to. Sam would _make sure_ that it did, and he didn't care what he had to do. The sense of giddy recklessness he felt was almost exhilarating, the chains of his usual restraint falling away with a dull clang. Nothing was more important than saving his brother.

It didn't take more than a flying visit to St. John's Hospital to locate the address of Jennifer Lawrence's former home and the details of those belonging to the other victims, the hospital's next of kin records easily providing all the information Sam had needed. The younger Winchester had never been able to charm women with the same panache as his brother, but when they were middle aged, mousy and frumpy beyond their years..._then_ he excelled. One flash of his dimpled, ingratiating smile and Winifred the receptionist had been practically tripping over her paisley-patterned skirt to see to Sam's every whim. He might have felt guilty about it. But he didn't. Escaping her cooing clutches had used up valuable seconds however, Sam's vow of swift ruthlessness falling apart at the sight of her pudgy, hopeful smile. He'd privately grimaced as he'd tried not to eye the mercilessly ticking clock on the wall behind her head, tossing out a slew of pleasantries from his standard repertoire until she was finally waving him away, chest puffed out in almost purring satisfaction.

Back in the safety of the Impala, he began mapping the addresses he'd collected. And paused. And blinked. The marks he'd made seemed to cluster in one small area of the city, in the West Peoria suburb. Where – and a quick glance at his big brother's notes confirmed it – Dean had gone when he'd made his visit to Fiona Adams. Curious. And not a coincidence, Sam was sure. Hunters didn't _do _coincidences. Believing in random co-occurrences where the supernatural was concerned had cost many hunters their lives, and Sam wasn't about to let it cost Dean's too. But what it all meant still eluded him. Dean might have been in that part of the city before he'd gone radio silent for those frightening few hours, but it didn't tell Sam anything concrete about who or what might be responsible. It was a lead though, a solid, life raft of a clue in a choppy ocean of swirling unknowns that Sam could cling to.

The young hunter barely noticed the passing blur outside the Impala's windows as he drove, his surroundings melting and merging together into something that vaguely resembled their motel's wallpaper. The Impala seemed to move of her own volition, appearing to sense where they were headed before Sam could consciously guide her. Only after the taller, domino structures of downtown Peoria began slowly to shrink into squat apartment buildings, and finally into suburban, cookie-cutter residences, did Sam begin to wake from his pensive reverie. All through his journey, he'd been pondering Fiona Adams, dissecting and analysing the vague and unformed..._hunch – _the bone deep sense of unease and suspicion – that had been snapping doggedly at his heels ever since he'd placed Dean and the other unconnected victims within the same radius as the woman who'd been the driving force behind the revelation of the care home scandal. And the more he thought about it, the more incredulous he became that Dean hadn't picked up on it. And the more guilty he began to feel, because really, he _knew_ deep down why Dean hadn't cottoned on to it.

But he'd been there, and he'd more than bombed out his conscience for that. And he so didn't have time to revisit the rubble he'd left in his wake.

Sam heaved a sigh. He had his target firmly sighted in the crosshairs of his hunting rifle, but he had no proof. Nor had he any idea what supernatural weapon had been wielded. And then there were the inconsistencies that nagged incessantly at him. It made perfect sense for the Adams woman to have started a vendetta against the people who had, in all likelihood, been responsible for her mother's death, and the subsequent cover up. Having read Dean's account of what had apparently gone on at the care home, Sam knew he wouldn't have wholly blamed her. Even the police officer was an obvious choice. And yet, not everyone who'd worked at the care home had been affected. And why go after a housekeeper, a seventeen year-old grocery store clerk, an officer worker, a postal worker and a mechanic? People who bore no relation or link to the scandal. Dean he thought he understood, and he felt his entire body harden, lips baring in a silent growl, at the idea that his big brother might have been deliberately attacked. At the thought that someone might have wanted Dean removed because he was getting too close to the truth. If it was true...if that woman had unleashed this...this _thing_ on his big brother...Sam could feel the heat of the fiery blood that suddenly rocketed through his veins, could feel his heart slamming against his ribcage, powering up for lift-off. His teeth were grinding with such furious pressure that he thought his jaw might actually crumble to dust. There was something frightening about the anger, the unexpected ferocity, that might have tripped his _Dark Side_ alarm, if it hadn't been about protecting his brother.

For Dean he didn't care. He welcomed it.

Agitated, he slammed a vehement palm down onto the Impala's steering wheel, causing the Chevy to swerve slightly on the road. Hastily righting the car, he braced himself, forgetting for a brief moment where he was and why, and cringing in resigned preparation for the indignant lecture that normally accompanied such blasphemous treatment of Dean's baby. His brother's reprimand was so clear in his head, it was almost as if Dean had really been there to say the words. But there was no sound, no hiss of disappointment, no spat expletive, no threat to Sam's life.

And it hurt like _hell_.

It took several wrong turns, a dead end cul de sac and a near miss with a yowling neighbourhood tabby before Sam eventually found what he'd been searching for. If he could find a way to connect the dots between Fiona Adams and the other victims, he'd have all the evidence he needed.

Alan Lawrence still occupied the West Peoria house that he'd shared with his wife, along with their teenage son Mark. The small dwelling was the only one that stood out from the rows of indistinguishable drones, but with a shabby, apologetic quality that made its deviant nature appear to be the nonconforming exception that proved the street's well-tended rule. The cream clapboard walls were chipped and riddled with woodworm pockmarks, the steep roof missing several tiles and spattered with moss. The curtains were drawn on both sets of windows, allowing Sam no opportunity to snoop. The grass surrounding the house barely reached past the rubber soles of the hunter's shoes as he made his way towards the faded front door, yet still managed to look unkempt compared to the rest of the immaculate street. He paused at the bottom of the steps, casting a vague glance around him. Blinding white paintwork beamed back at him from all angles, along with vibrantly hued doors and gutters, and lawns that looked as if someone had painstakingly trimmed them with nail-clippers. The Lawrences were probably the shame of the neighbourhood. Sam remembered reading in the hospital file that Jennifer had been a housekeeper. The friggin' Stepford Wives must have _loved_ that.

It took a dubiously long time for Sam's brisk knock to be answered, minutes spent tapping his foot impatiently against the worn wooden slats that creaked under his weight, and quietly panicking that nobody was home. He'd been about to give up, and had been turning away – shoulders slumped in defeat – when the tarnished door was suddenly yanked open with a violence that made him startle visibly. He whirled reflexively, his proximity to the stairs nearly causing him to overbalance.

"Yes?" The strained voice barely made it above a whisper, exhaustion bleeding into the tone from open wounds of pain that were openly displayed on the older man's sagging, drooping features. Alan Lawrence might once have been a good looking man, if grief hadn't chipped away at rugged cheeks, and bruised the skin beneath dulled eyes. Greying charcoal hair lay in subdued wisps atop his balding crown, looking as if it hadn't seen a bottle of shampoo in days; an impression that was noisomely reinforced by the stale stench of body odour that drifted out from within the house.

Sam blanched, getting a sudden vision of his own future, before gulping back his own despair and straightening his shoulders.

"Mr Lawrence? My name is Sam, uh, Kuryakin," the young hunter began, voice wobbling slightly over the name he still didn't feel quite able to declare with any semblance of aplomb.

The other man twitched his eyebrows, glancing at Sam with a muddy glimmer of apathetic amusement. "Like the TV show?"

Sam cleared his throat, unable to defuse a momentary spark of brotherly frustration. Dean and his friggin' ID cards. "Uh, yeah. Something like that. Mr Lawrence, I'm from the CDC. I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about your..." He faltered slightly as Alan's face seemed to deflate, cheeks hollowing with a skeletal lifelessness. "About your wife's illness," he recovered, trying to draw from a reservoir of strength that was usually his brother's.

"I don't know what I can tell you. But if I can be any help at all..." The older man stepped back to allow Sam entrance, gesturing towards a dank smelling living room on the right. The young hunter felt as if his shoulders took up all the available space in the corridor, and stepped with fleeting relief into the indicated room. It didn't take long for the fog of despair to resettle after his brief moment of clear skies however. A small lamp in one corner attempted feebly to light the room that the closed curtains had darkened, and even in the meagre illumination, Sam could see the living space for the shambles it had become. The sofas were layered with discarded items of clothing, the dining table in the corner a skyscraper metropolis of piled, dirty crockery. Papers were scattered across the low coffee table in the centre of the room, ringed with coffee stains and scattered crumbs.

"I'm sorry for–" The other man began, but Sam hastily shook his head, reassuring him that it didn't matter. Inside, though, he could feel the room's hopelessness, the sorrow and the desolation. It settled over him in a thick, tightening net, trapping him. And all he wanted to do was run from it, even as he felt his determination holding steady against the flow of instinctive panic.

Alan pushed aside a crumpled mass of clothing and indicated for Sam to be seated. He moved across to an armchair and cleared a space for himself. Sam wanted to ask for the curtains to be opened, desperate for some light to cast the room's suffocating bleakness into the shadows, but the older man seemed content to sit in semi-darkness.

"Mr Lawrence," Sam began after an uncomfortable moment of silence. "Can you tell me when it was that you first noticed the signs that your wife was becoming...unwell?"

The older man pursed his lips, leaning forward to let his clasped hands hang down between akimbo knees. He ducked his head, appearing fascinated with an ugly, dark stain on the pale coloured carpet. "Uh, it would've been a few days ago now, I think. I can't believe how much things have changed since..." His breath snagged slightly as it caught against a spike of sadness. "There were little things at first, you know?" He raised his head and impaled Sam with a piercing stare. "She started forgetting things, simple things that we'd end up arguing over. There were things I _knew_ I'd said to her, but she'd be adamant that she hadn't heard. Our son Mark, well, she forgot to pick him up from school, and she normally did that _every day_. She couldn't explain why she hadn't done it that time. And then not long after that, she called our son _Jimmy_. That was her brother's name, Mr Kuryakin. I freaked out, took her to the doctor after that."

Sam nodded in sympathy, trying to blink away the teary film that was beginning to blur his vision, the stories never seemed to get easier no matter how many times he heard them. He thought of how his brother had been the previous night, pleading with their deceased father to tell him why he'd chosen to die. He closed his eyes briefly, shielding his pain until he could get it under some semblance of control. "Was there anything...strange, anything unusual that happened before you started noticing these things?" He had to stay focussed.

Alan raised his eyes and blinked, appearing to be taken off-guard by the question. It wasn't an unusual reaction, Sam had come to find over the course of his interviews. "It was all so sudden, I don't think...Well, I suppose there was something, but I never really thought much about it after everything that...I–I don't really see how it could help."

Sam felt himself stiffen against the lumpiness of the couch beneath him, the involuntary thrill at the prospect of a potential lead tingling electrically down his spine. But he kept his tone low, gentle so as not to spook the grieving man. "Anything, no matter how small, could help us figure this out. Can you tell me what happened?"

If Alan had noticed his guest's sudden alertness, he gave no indication. He trudged on in the same hollow, weary murmur. "Well my wife is..._was_ a housekeeper," he corrected himself with a pained grimace. "She practically worked this whole area. I guess it must've been maybe a day or so before she started forgetting things, I get this call from one of Jen's clients. Mrs Klein. Turns out that Jen didn't turn up for work like she was supposed to. Said she was an hour late. And that just isn't like her. I mean, she _hates_ Mrs Klein, but Jen, she always worked hard. She wouldn't have abandoned her job like that. I tried to call her, but she wasn't picking up."

Sam felt his fingers start to grow numb as he tried to note down the other man's words, his pen turning thick and cumbersome, as if he was trying to write instead with one of those novelty jumbo pencils he'd once seen in a toy shop window. "Where did she go?" He ground out, his words feeling just as unwieldy and awkward.

Alan himself seemed to straighten as he became more animated, more earnest. "That's the thing! I never found out, and Jen wouldn't say. Or at least, she fed me some cock-and-bull story about blowing off work to go shopping. She never did stuff like that, knew we couldn't afford it. We're barely making our mortgage payments as it is. And she looked exhausted. I knew she'd been at work that morning, but what she could've been doing in the afternoon to make her look that tired, I don't know." He shot Sam a crestfallen glance, and the young hunter easily identified the same _I-should-have-done-something _brand of guilt being bottled up within himself.

"Well, where was she working that morning?" Sam asked, feeling like a diver beginning to spring as adrenaline began a slow burn of anticipation. He was close, he knew it.

"How is that relevant?" The other man was looking at him strangely, and Sam wondered fleetingly what he might have inadvertently let slip in his expression.

"I just want to make sure I get all the details. Maybe I could go talk to your wife's client."

Alan seemed mollified by the explanation. "It was Miss Adams, Fiona, I think. I spoke to her on the phone when I couldn't get hold of Jen. Told me my wife had been there as usual, and that she'd seemed okay. Apparently Jen didn't say anything to her about where she might have gone."

It was several seconds before Sam found his voice, and when he finally did, it came out trembling under the weight of all his confirmed suspicions. His mind was suddenly woozy, stumbling drunkenly from implication to implication. "Fiona Adams," he managed weakly, trying to sober up his inebriated thoughts. "Didn't she have something to do with all that stuff about the care home that closed down?"

Alan nodded sombrely. "Poor thing. She was a total wreck after it all happened. Especially when the charges got dropped. Jen always said the woman liked things in order, that OCD thing or whatever, used to drive her m–" He coughed slightly in embarrassment at his unintended pun and averted his eyes. "Well it used to really annoy her. But after all the stress of the media campaign, and the investigation, it got worse. At one point she actually told Jen not to come back, was really upset apparently, but my wife could see she needed the help. Jen, she was so good with people, you know?"

Sam, who'd been nearly bouncing in his chair as he fought the urge to bolt from the room, grew solemn as he remembered that this man had lived – was still living – the same nightmare that _he_ was. He nodded with a compassion that he didn't want to spare the energy for, but couldn't bring himself to disregard. "I know this must be hard for you, Mr Lawrence, but you've been a big help. Thanks for your time."

o0o0o

Sam picked up the phone mid-ring, fumbling slightly as he attempted to steer the Impala one-handed.

"What do you got, Bobby?" He barked briskly, and then winced at the answering silence, static crackling in his ears as he imagined the expression his old friend would have levelled at him had they been in the same room. He'd been too curt, and he knew it. But he also knew that Bobby wasn't one for a long-winded sulk.

"Do I sound like your PA, boy?" Bobby tossed back sardonically.

Sam's lip twitched involuntarily, despite the seriousness of the situation. Winding the older man up was a pastime he and Dean enjoyed in equal measure, but though the opportunity was ripe and there to be plucked, he found himself hastening to apologise. Now was not the time to be fooling around. "Sorry, Bobby. I just..."

"I know, I know. No need to go growin' lady parts on my account, Sam." The young hunter could almost hear the smile that moulded the older man's words, the shape firmed and sculpted with a warm, gruff affection. Dean had almost certainly gotten his flair for dismissive sarcasm from their surrogate uncle, Sam decided as his reluctant smirk widened into a sheepish smile. He had a fleeting memory of his ten year-old brother trotting faithfully around the salvage yard after an obliviously cursing Bobby, only alerting the older man to his presence after a particularly enthusiastic attempt to demonstrate his ability for rote learning. Sam had never seen Bobby look so mortified. Of course, the younger Winchester hadn't known what it had all meant at the time, but years later the image still made his body tremble with suppressed laughter. His brief foray into mirthful nostalgia was abruptly halted however when Bobby signalled a return to seriousness with a rough, pointed clearing of his throat. "I might have somethin'," the older man continued, and Sam immediately felt his ears prick. He stared, unseeing out the windshield, every attentional resource focussed on the small speaker at his ear. "Called in a favour from an old pal of mine over in West Virginia. Ornery old dog, but he knows his crap. Said he come across somethin' like this a few years back. Reckons we're lookin' at a buncha _Maniae._"

"A bunch of what?" Sam echoed in complete incomprehension, brows knitting and stitching together into a deep frown as he steered, one-armed into a swerving overtake manoeuvre, ignoring the fanfare of furious horns from vehicles in the oncoming lane. He felt his head spin slightly at the jerky motion, sending thick bile shooting up into his throat from his roiling stomach, and belatedly rued the two shots of coffee he'd downed fifteen minutes earlier. Exhaustion and caffeine appeared to be colliding in his brain with explosive effect.

"There's a whole stack of lore on them in Greek mythology." Sam scrunched his features reflexively as the sound of rustling papers lanced into his eardrum. "Known as spirits of madness. Like to get up close and personal with the goddess _Lyssa_ – who's apparently the ragin', furious type. Figures Dean would be the one to piss _her_ off." The younger Winchester snorted softly in agreement. Dean had always had a certain _lock-up-your-daughters_ charm, which Sam had to admit, his big brother had made no effort to diminish. "But that's not all," Bobby was continuing, taking on the focussed, scholarly tone he always did when relaying the fruits of his research. "These little buggers also run with the _Erinyes..._the three goddesses of vengeance."

Sam swore softly, eyes weaving sightlessly as he watched the pieces falling into place on his internal puzzle board. Even the Impala seemed to rev into a deep growl, as if she too was seeing the emerging picture. Vengeance, oh yes, vengeance fitted into that schematic only too well. That corrupting human motivation, the one that had blighted their lives almost since birth, and which still seemed to pollute their very souls with a nuclear toxicity. Fiona Adams had wanted to seek retribution towards the people who had killed her mother, and in doing so had blasted open a whole keg of supernatural worms. Why she'd sought revenge on the others was still a mystery. But Dean? No, that seed of suspicion had been sown into a full grown redwood of cold, hard fact in Sam's mind. And vengeance _he'd_ have too, when he got hold of the bitch. "So how does it work, Bobby? Where do these spirits come from?"

Bobby continued with his recitation as if he hadn't noticed the sudden drop in the temperature of Sam's voice. "Far as I can tell, some kinda summoning spell. Then, once you've got their attention, you can sic 'em on whoever it is got your dander up." Sam felt an unwelcome bubble of mirth gargle at the back of his throat as he considered his old friend's blithe understatement. That, and the fact that if anyone was guaranteed to get someone's dander up, it was probably Dean. Vaguely, he wondered if anger had become hysteria somewhere down the panic-line.

"According to the lore," The veteran hunter went on. "They work on thoughts, memories...everything your mind processes. They feed on brain activity, like friggin' parasites, until they've sucked you dry. And apparently they like the juicy ones, people who've got...issues." Sam tore at his bottom lip with bared teeth, feeling blood trickle warmly down his chin from the cut he'd inadvertently reopened, his grip on the steering wheel turning skeletal. Bobby's words had tripped a rapid fire film-reel of the events he and Dean had endured over the past few days...months..._years_. The pictures rampaged across his vision, swamping his senses and paralysing his heart – the beleaguered organ cowering and holding up a white-flag of surrender as grief, the conceited conqueror, stood tall and victorious. Oblivious to Sam's sudden code-blue, Bobby plunged on with his explanation. "They don't do no physical damage – which is probably why nothin' showed up on those medical scans – but once they've had their fill, the brain shuts down, internal organs too." Catching the almost imperceptible hitch in the older man's rough baritone, Sam felt his heart hunch further into a spiky, hedgehog-ball of despair.

"Let me guess...they take their time feeding. Couple days, right?" He was amazed any air had made it past his sealed throat at all, let alone allowed him to form words. The air felt thin, dizzying, as if he were breathing it at high altitude.

"Got it in one." Bobby's affirmation was grim, bitter. Sam could almost picture the way the words must have twisted sourly at his friend's features, could count the number of times he'd ever had cause to see such an expression on the fingers of one hand.

"Bobby...How do we stop them?" He hesitated, choking on the fragile morsel of hope that had become lodged in his throat as his blood froze solid in his veins, a jagged stalactite of fear jabbing icily into his gut. "We _can_ stop them, right?" He grimaced in irritation as the gently strolling vehicle on the road in front began drifting to a halt at a busy intersection. The light still had several seconds to turn red, but Sam knew he'd be stuck keeping pace with the dozy, oblivious driver. Dammit, did _no one_ have anywhere to be in this craphole city?

"Well, we should be able to banish their asses with a counter-spell. But we need the original summoning, and there's a whole bunch of 'em that coulda been used. It'll take too much time to find the right one through trial and error, and _without_ findin' the right one, we won't know how to get rid of 'em. It's kinda like an antidote...until you know what the virus is–"

"You can't work out the counter-agent," Sam finished, agitatedly tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he bored his eyes into the steadfastly unchanging traffic light, hoping that he could alter it by sheer force of will alone. "Well...I can get it. Bobby, I think I know who's behind this. That woman Dean spoke to? I think she's the one that's been going after all these people." The light finally flashed green and Sam pounded his foot down onto the gas pedal, smirking as the car's surging revs sent the driver in front scurrying. "All the first victims were people connected to what happened to her Mom, right? And get this, I spoke to the families of the other victims. They'd _all_ had contact with her right before they got sick."

"How?"

Sam shook his head faintly, mind flowing down a river of interconnected memories as he reviewed what he'd discovered. "One of them was her housekeeper," he began ticking off the victims, one by one. "The teenager, she worked in the woman's local grocery store. I got a look at the store footage from the day before Hailey went postal. That woman was _there_. One of the other victims, Regina Martin, was the mother of a child that bitch had been babysitting – they lived in the same friggin' neighbourhood. Howard Mason was a postal worker who delivered a package to the woman's house. And _then_ there was Kevin Neilson...he was a mechanic. Want to guess who the last car he worked on before he got sick belonged to?"

Bobby's surprised huff of breath seemed to blow like a gust of white noise against Sam's ear. "I'll be damned. But why...the housekeeper leave a speck of dirt on the floor? She get short-changed at the grocery store? What did those other folks do to piss her off?"

"I don't know," Sam ground out impatiently. "And right now, I don't care! We can work out those details later. When Dean's better." He set his jaw, resolve coaxing his huddled heart out from hibernation and sending it growling back into the fray. "I'll find the spell Bobby. I'm headed there now to have a little _chat_ with Fiona Adams."

The elder hunter's reaction was immediate. "Whoa, wait a minute, hold your horses, son! You don't know what kinda mojo that bitch's got up her sleeve. You go in there half-cocked like your idjit of a brother, you don't know what might be ridin' copilot when you leave."

"Son of a bitch," Sam murmured, realising that his old friend was right, and feeling an almost childlike tantrum begin to nudge at the edges of his self-control. A foot stamping, vocal-chord shredding, bring-the-whole-shopping-mall-to-a-standstill tantrum. It wasn't _fair_. She'd gone after Dean, she'd hurt his big brother...he wanted to take her down, wanted to make her _pay_. But he saw the sense of his friend's caution. He couldn't afford to let anything get in the way of saving his big brother. Revenge would always take a back seat to that. Even their father had sacrificed a twenty-three year vengeance trip for Dean...along with his life. There was no question that Sam would do the same, he was just hoping it wouldn't come to that.

"I need to get inside the house..." he mused, reining the Impala in from her frantic gallop as the immediate urgency of their journey subsided. She seemed to snort with frustrated impatience, a haughty head-toss implicit in the way she shuddered beneath him, and he found himself caressing the steering wheel with soothing fingers as he attempted to calm her. Jeez...when had he turned into Dean?

"Well I suggest you wait 'til she ain't there," Bobby tossed back drily.

Sam's eyebrows met in a head-on collision as he pondered his friend's advice. "But I'm sure Dean wrote something about her not going out much..."

There was a whooshing sigh of exasperation. "Have I taught you nothing, boy? If you want to get her out of her house...call her..._make up_ some crap!"

Sam sputtered slightly, lips forming around words his brain hadn't quite figured out yet. Dammit, Dean was the one who was good at this kind of on-the-fly planning. He'd seen his brother talk his way in – and out – of countless tight spots, while Sam stood by and stammered uselessly. "Okay, even if that was in any way likely to work, what the hell am I supposed to say to her?"

"I don't know, tell her there's a sale on at Target...or wherever women shop these days! I'm sure you can find some way to put that college education to good use, Sam."

The younger hunter found himself again battling an involuntary smirk. Bobby had clearly been a bachelor for too long. His brief moment of sunlight was immediately chased away by charging storm clouds of grief however, as he swivelled his head to glance at the gaping chasm of space beside him. He missed Dean. Really missed him. Especially at times like this, when they could both gang up on their surrogate uncle. "All right, all right, I'll think of something," he murmured absently, pausing as he readied himself to ask the question he'd been avoiding throughout their entire conversation. "How's he doing?"

Bobby's moment of silence was just as cautious, just as loaded. When he eventually spoke, the words were back-lit by an artificial glow of projected nonchalance. But if Sam squinted at just the right angle, he could make out the shadowy form of the concern his friend was trying to shield from him. "Dean? Tuckered himself out 'bout a half hour ago," The elder hunter allowed a measure of relief to seep out into his tone. And Sam couldn't blame him. His _own_ relief at the news was palpable. "Seemed to take exception to the local paper though, started rippin' it to shreds. Been pacing for a while too," Bobby continued, shattering Sam's fragile solace and replacing it with mental images that still bled like open wounds. "Took a while to get 'im to calm down. Thank god for _Star Trek_ re-runs."

Sam almost smiled. He could only imagine how Bobby was faring with that. The last time Dean had gotten to watch a _Star Trek_ marathon he'd driven his little brother to the end of his rope with endless quotes, hissing sound effects, and murmured sleep talk about Deanna Troi..."You must have the patience of a saint, Bobby." The younger Winchester hesitated once more, wondering whether he wanted to rub rocksalt into cuts that were already soul-deep. "Did he, uh, say anything...?"

Again the veteran hunter mirrored his young friend's reluctance, clearing what sounded like a golf-ball sized gob of phlegm from his throat. It seemed to take a while. "Couple times he thought I was your Daddy. Didn't seem best pleased with me."

Bobby's clipped, strained words were throwing up all kinds of red flags, and big, flashing neon signs that wailed with high-pitched warning klaxons: _Warning. Private Property. Keep Out._ Yeah, Sam was getting _that_ one loud and clear. "Oh...uh, right...same here..." he faltered, voice trailing out in a wisp of smoke that dissipated into the air like an extinguished flame. "Bobby...we gotta fix this."

"We will, son. We will."

o0o0o

Jud Hollis discarded his spent cigarette with a dismissive flick of his grubby, nicotine-jaundiced fingers. He watched the glowing embers slowly die with absent eyes, the true focus of his vision directed inwards as he mentally turned over the new information he'd acquired. The heat of the afternoon sun blazed down onto the back of his neck, and he shoved a hunk of matted blond locks over from his shoulder to block its rays. He leaned back against the comforting solidity of his SUV – licence plates newly updated upon his arrival in Peoria – and stared across the parking lot at his new accommodation. The darkness had hidden the extent of its disrepair when he'd arrived in the small hours of the morning: splintered guttering hanging forlornly from the rim of a badly listing roof; layers of grime coating small, porthole windows; ivy, or some other creeping plant, advancing on the chipped walls in an army of leaves and stems. But it was cheap, and it was inconspicuous. So bad that even the Winchesters wouldn't stay there, and his anonymity was therefore ensured.

He pulled out another cigarette, already having forgotten the earlier fatality that lay twisted at his feet. It had been a busy morning, but he'd gotten done what he'd needed to. He'd scouted out a location around an hour outside of Peoria, the ramshackle ruin of an old farmhouse that had been condemned for removal. The disintegrated state of the warning signs that hung squinty from the rusted mesh fence that had once surrounded the place told Jud just how long the building had been on death row, and how likely it was that anyone would turn up for its execution in the near future. All it needed was a little preparation, a few additions, and it would be perfect. He was taking a leaf from Gordon's book, he knew, but there was no way he'd be making the same mistake. There would be no outsmarting Sam Winchester, that had been his old friend's downfall. No. Jud's plan was much simpler. And now he knew for certain that the Winchesters were in town, he was sure he'd be able to pull it off without even raising a sweat.

This new information was curious however. Just a few hours in this city had garnered him plenty of references to Sam and Dean, their names popping up faster than a game of Whack-a-Mole. Jud shifted on the spot, drawing in a long drag from his cigarette, savouring the burn in his lungs. Apparently the two men weren't searching for Ava Wilson after all. It seemed they'd gotten sidetracked by a hunt that Jud had caught the scent of as soon as he'd arrived in the city. His hunting instinct was too well honed to miss signs as glaring as what the newspapers had been reporting, and he'd planned on quickly wrapping that one up after he'd taken care of his original mission. But it had puzzled him nonetheless, the Winchesters hanging around like this when, by all accounts, the Wilson girl was still missing. Why had their priorities changed?

Jud shrugged distractedly. It probably didn't even matter, but he didn't like unknowns. If he was going to pull this off, he couldn't have any surprises. It seemed he'd have to do a little investigating of his own.

o0o0o

_More Dean in the next one, I promise! Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts..._


	11. Panic Attack

My most sincere and heartfelt thanks go to all those who have reviewed, favourited and alerted this story so far.

An extra special thank you goes to my good pal Sharlot for all the hard beta work she has put into this story. Oh, and the extended Dean POV in this chapter probably wouldn't exist if it wasn't for all of her enthusiasm, support and encouragement, so this chapter is totally dedicated to her! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 11 – Panic Attack**

Dammit, but Sam was really taking his sweet time in fetching dinner. Dean frowned, trying to fidget himself into a more comfortable position on a mattress that felt as jagged and lumpy as a dried out riverbed. He tutted sternly and huffed out an enormous sigh, turning the air around him blue with unvoiced curses and expletives as if Sam, wherever the hell he was, would hear the telepathic tirade and realise that his hungry big brother was friggin' fed up waiting for him to drag his ass back to the motel. Not that the kid ever listened anyway. If this was some kind of juvenile prank to deny Dean his burger and his pie...there was going to be hell to pay.

Sam had been moody ever since graduation, minor moments of sulky sniffing and pouting that had been steadily growing in inverse proportion to their father's dwindling level of tolerance. More than once Dean had found himself playing referee in a series of unscheduled screaming matches, many times on the verge of throwing _himself_ down onto the ground for the count of ten in the vain hope that it might bring the fight to a close. He'd never needed to, as it turned out, one of the combatants usually saving him the trouble by merely forfeiting and storming out for several hours.

Last night it had been their father. Dean wasn't worried...Well, he _was_, but John Winchester never usually strayed far after an argument, not since they'd started working on more hunts as a family. Sam finally finishing school seemed to have given with one hand and taken away with the other. Their father was around more, but Sam had lost his one mode of escapism, and was therefore more unhappy than Dean could ever remember him being. The youngest Winchester had become suspiciously secretive over the past few months too, always hurriedly shoving something into his duffel, or under his pillow whenever Dean came upon him unexpectedly. The elder hunter was curious as hell, but he had to try to respect Sammy's privacy. For now anyway.

Dean worried pensively at his lip. There was a low murmur of noise somewhere in the unformed background, peppered by swishing sounds and strangely oscillating bleeps. He found his thoughts fading into the ether as he blinked himself into an awareness that seemed all too abrupt and raw. He turned his head, alert now, to an environment that had previously been vague and unimportant. Something bright and colourful was flashing in the periphery of his vision as his eyes climbed the rainbow walls around him, exploring. The irregular strobe was endlessly compelling, but Dean found that he couldn't seem to take his eyes from the pattern that had suddenly snagged his attention. Why had he never noticed it before? The swirls and spirals were like a forest of vivid hues around him, they seemed to ripple hypnotically in a misty aurora borealis of light. He raised a finger into the air as if to touch, to feel, to connect with their beauty. There was an unpleasant trickling sensation in the pit of his stomach when his finger met no solid resistance, and Dean felt his entire body harden in a way that he couldn't comprehend. His finger drifted in and out of the wisps of colour, but the discrepancy between what vision and tactile perception were telling him seemed to be jamming something in his mental processing. He froze, hand in mid-air. Thoughts were sluggish, oozing like a polluted river, their currents splintering and separating into a delta of disconnected emotions, thoughts, conclusions, decisions. None of them made sense.

Dean blinked, fluttering his eyelashes in disorientation. Where was he? Why was he...wherever this was? He turned his head again, scanning his surroundings. None of it seemed familiar. Shapes grew fuzzy and sinister as his brain attempted to make sense of sensory information that had suddenly become incompatible, his hard-drive corrupted and stalled. He felt his breathing quicken slightly, unease settling into his bones. It looked like he was in a motel room. They all looked the same, smelled the same, had the same shabby aura. But where...? Why...? His mind stuttered, skipping over the same questions like a broken CD. Where...? Why...? There was a vacuum of air around them, his thoughts; they seemed to float in isolation. Where...? Why...? He stared forwards blankly, pupils rooted to the spot, until his eyelids seemed to thaw and close of their own accord. Where...? Why...?

All of a sudden, a clattering sound came at him from somewhere undefined and hazy, followed by a muffled grumble that startled Dean out of his inertia, charging his brain like a defibrillator. He shifted at the disturbance, wincing slightly at the pain that followed. Pain? His eyes narrowed in confusion. This was new. He squinted at his arms, his torso, his legs; examining them each in turn as he searched for its source. Slowly drawing his knee into a crook, he twitched again, raising his eyebrows in surprise. His feet were sore, he realised. And now that he was paying attention, he noticed that the soles felt cracked and itchy against the fabric of his socks. He straightened the leg out again, not wanting to put pressure on the wounds. What the hell? He frowned down at his feet in bewilderment, seeing them sticking up like skewed tombstones at the end of his legs. Huh. How had he managed that?

The abyss was there again, and he found himself held there, suspended, over the great gulf that had opened in his mind; that threatened to swallow him whole. And then all at once he knew the answer, a great downpour of relief raining on him in torrential sheets to fill the mental chasm until he was floating, buoyed. Then the memories were flowing freely once more. The Wendigo. That was it. The realisation seemed to crack in his head like snapped fingers. And damn but that had been one hell of a hunt. No wonder he was sore. Beaten and strung up like meat left to cure in that dank, mephitic cave, decomposing bodies rotting and decaying around him, skulls and bones piled up like pillaged treasure. Now that he thought about it, he could feel the ache in his shoulders from the cruel way he'd been bound, nose wrinkling as he noticed the stench that still clung to his clothes.

Sam had looked so worried when he'd found him, for one brief moment morphing from hardened hunter to scared little brother; the expression sending all kinds of Pavlovian, big brotherly signals shooting straight to Dean's heart. And so, hurting and exhausted as the elder hunter had felt, he'd held it together, he'd allowed himself a grunt of pain as Sam had freed him. And then he'd been fine. He was always fine. Sam needed him to be fine. He could tell the kid hadn't believed him at first, not merely accepting Dean's deflection as he might have done years ago. Stanford had apparently taught him that big brothers weren't infallible; invincible. But eventually Sam had calmed down, ceasing his hovering and allowing Dean to stride off and distract the Wendigo. Of course, that hadn't stopped the kid from mother-henning him to within in an inch of his life when they'd eventually found a motel to crash for the night. Stanford had apparently _also_ turned his brother into a girl, although Dean wasn't entirely sure that Sam hadn't been one anyway.

The elder Winchester quirked a lip as he recalled the perma-bitchface that Sam had worn ever since they'd arrived. Dean knew he didn't make a good patient, knew that _Sam _knew it too. And still the kid had fussed. Dean shook his head slightly, he definitely deserved a drink after enduring that. After braving the sighs, and the pursed lips, and the hands on hips, and the sternly huffed '_Dean's_. A beer. A beer sounded very good. Sounded pretty freakin' awesome actually. Something to wash away the lingering taste of decay at the back of his throat, to block out yet another near-death experience, to numb the lingering aches. Hell, yeah. He deserved a beer. He was pretty sure he'd spotted a bar on their drive through town, it was pretty much the first thing he catalogued when they went to a new place.

He'd just tell Sam...He paused, blinking again, but this time in slow, cautious waves. Where the hell was Sam? Dean gazed around the room, rubbing a hand across his eyes as his retinas continued to torment him with lines and shapes that seemed to wibble-wobble in the room's dim light. Where was Sam? Distractedly he pushed a hand beneath him, levering himself from the bed. Something unpleasant was simmering in the pit of his stomach as he jerked his head this way and that, growing more and more agitated as his blurry eyes continued to feed him squiggly forms that he couldn't make sense of. That weren't his little brother. Belatedly he sensed movement, nearly overbalancing as he whirled to face its source.

"Sammy?" He demanded of the bulky figure before him, eyeballs beginning to bulge slightly as his brain tried to create order from his chaotic senses. But Sam...Sammy was taller wasn't he? Dean paused, reviewing the last stored image he had of his brother, trying to fit the long, lean template around the squat figure in front of him. The kid had turned into some kind of gigantor over the years, growing to a size that made even Dean feel small. No, he decided, this wasn't Sam. Couldn't be. So who the hell...?

He tensed, clenching his fists as his mind – overloaded and sparking like a broken fuse – fell back into primitive mode, instincts swinging madly between fight or flight. This wasn't Sam. Wasn't Sam. Wasn't his little brother. Wasn't Sam...wasn't...wasn't, his mind stuttered, skimming over the surface of coherent thought like a stone across water until it finally lost momentum and became submerged once more. It wasn't Sam, that much he had managed to establish. So who..._what_? His breathing was coming in harsh pants now, great heaves that were sending little bubbles of heady panic shooting up into his already tumultuous brain. There was a low, rumbling sound. _A voice?_ He petitioned his ears, receiving nothing but a blank shrug in return. "Who are you?" He tried to challenge, but the words left his mouth in a much higher pitch than he'd intended; squawking out like a startled crow. The figure moved forward at his command, and Dean instinctively shied away, yelping slightly as his scabbed feet pricked on the spiky carpet. "Get away from me!" He yelled, not caring now about the fear that frayed at the edges of his tone. "Who are you?" He stumbled backwards until his calves met the edge of the bed and he tumbled down onto it, a tiny flicker of clarity mercifully allowing him to force his momentum to carry him over to the other side.

"Dean!" It knew him, whatever...whoever it was. It _knew_ him. The young hunter sprang upwards from where he'd landed on the floor, dropping immediately into a defensive stance as he warily eyed his unknown assailant. Dammit, where was his knife? Something had come for him. Crap, something had _come_ for him! It was in the _room. _And god, but what if it had done something to Sam?

His lips disappeared as he bared his teeth. He'd _kill_ it! He'd freakin' annihilate it!

"What the hell are you? And what have you done with my brother?" Dean snarled, body quivering and spasming. He jerked and twisted on the spot, lips twitching, arms contorting, utterly unable to keep still as fear and fury began to overwhelm him. His body felt uncontrolled, like someone had cut the puppet-strings between brain and limbs. His fists unclenched without warning, and he let out a small grunt of impotent frustration as his hands began wringing themselves of their own accord.

"Dean, stay calm, boy! It's all right. It's _me. _It's _Bobby_!" The shadowy shape moved towards him again, but gingerly this time, a predator stalking its prey. Dean's breath caught in his throat, heart beating out a furious, panicked rhythm in his chest. The fear coursed like a drug through his system. It felt alien and dictatorial; something being done _to_ him and not coming _from _him. He was powerless, helplessly under its spell. He didn't understand it. It didn't feel real. How many times had he faced situations like this without batting an eyelid? But the unknowns, the uncertainties, the haziness...he didn't know what was happening. And it was terrifying. Finally, miraculously regaining control of his body, he staggered backwards once more until he realised with an abrupt jolt of potent horror that he'd backed himself into a corner.

"Bobby?" He squeaked, staring at the approaching figure in wide-eyed astonishment. "No way!" He insisted, crossing both wrists and then parting them with an emphatic swipe through the air. Shaking his head in desperate denial, he ground out the damning evidence through gritted teeth. "Last time I saw him...man, he threatened to blast dad full of buckshot. Had the gun cocked and everything. Why would he be here?"

The creature attempting to masquerade as Dean's surrogate uncle seemed to pause at that, and there was something so achingly familiar about the gesture, something that almost made the hunter's knees buckle with relief. "Dammit, Dean...You're...Son, you're not yourself right now. You need to calm–"

But they didn't, anger instead hardening his limbs, his heart. "I said _stay away_!" Dean growled fiercely as the intruder took another step, the space between them now too narrow for his liking. "Last time I saw him," he began again, the words close to the surface and too easily accessible in his agitated state. "...threatened to blast dad full of buckshot."

"Dean..."

"_Buckshot!_" Dean spat, the word catching in his teeth like morsels of chewed food. "Threatened to–to blast dad full of buckshot." He quivered with the effort of trying to make himself understood. But that phrase...suddenly it was all he could think, all he could hear, all he could feel. It birled around and around endlessly in his mind, seeming to whirl ever faster as his distress sky-rocketed. Why was this happening to him? Why couldn't he stop? But there were no other words available to him. His eyes grew glazed, unfocussed as he battled to halt the internal loop tape, trying to think of something, _anything_ that would pull him from its interminable cycle. But he couldn't seem to escape, the words sucking him back in like quick-sand. "T–t–threatened," he stuttered, mouth opening and closing with a gagging wheeze as he tried to staunch the flow of words."B–b–buckshot."

He'd been concentrating so hard that when the figure materialised suddenly before him, mere inches from the tip of his nose, he just reacted. He flung out a fist, wild and uncoordinated, grunting in faint surprise when he felt it connect solidly with something hard and fleshy. There was a roaring hush of silence as the creature teetered precariously on the spot, wobbling like the last pin on a bowling alley, before finally crashing to the ground with a thud that seemed to reverberate around the whole room.

Dean could only stare in paralysed shock as his attacker crumbled, hands braced reassuringly against the wall behind him. He didn't quite understand what he'd just done, but the threat seemed to have vanished. Clouds of disturbed dust particles rose into the air, unfurling in large, undulating plumes before slowly separating and drifting. He watched their gentle motion, allowing it to calm him, to soothe him. He followed one mote as it twirled up and over his head, tilting his head to watch its passage. Another one tickled teasingly at his nostrils, and he raised a hand to swipe at it, sneezing reflexively as he unwittingly breathed it in. The action sent more particles scurrying, and Dean smiled slightly at the patterns they made in the air, at their complex choreography.

The elder Winchester took a step forward, enjoying the movements of the dust as his body passed through their swirling mass. His foot caught slightly on an unknown object on the floor as he moved, but he dismissed it immediately, utterly entranced by the dancing motes. He raised a finger to catch one of the wafting particles, eyes lighting up as it came to rest on his skin. He zoomed in for a closer inspection, bitterly disappointed when a stray breath from his half-open mouth sent it skittering away. Frowning, he moved to snare another, much happier this time when he was able to send it on its way with a deliberate puff.

He followed the trail of another cartwheeling mote, allowing it to lead him across the room. When it drifted past the window, it seemed to burst into a flickering, orange flame. Curiosity piqued once more, the young hunter cast his gaze around, searching for the source of the fire. He cocked his head as he noticed the window's brightness. He stepped up to the pane, glancing from the intrusive street lamp that had set the dust alight, to the slowly darkening sky.

It was night.

The realisation felt unexpected, wrong somehow. Only...he didn't exactly know what time he'd actually thought it was. He shook his head with a mirthless smile. Jeez, either he was seriously whacked, or just totally bushed after a month-long marathon of back-to-back hunts. He knew he'd thrown himself head-first into whatever freaky death or weird disappearance he'd been able to get his hands on; utterly heartbroken after Sam had started ignoring his calls, but in no way ready to admit it to himself. His father had taken off some weeks ago, his parting shot a half-commanding, half-proud _I know you can handle yourself_. And so Dean had.

He snorted softly. Yeah, like he'd handled the gash that freakin' rawhead had given him? He could still feel the stabbing pain that sparked up his leg like a lightning bolt at every step. Sure he'd ganked the creature eventually, but it had taken him far longer than it should have. He'd lingered too long in one spot, the lumbering, fugly sonofabitch managing get in one lucky slash as fatigue had temporarily slowed its prey. Dean set his jaw in chagrin. Nice work. The clean up job on his leg had taken a dozen wonky, shaky stitches, a litany of curses, a ruined bedcover and a bottle of Johnnie Walker, chased down by the only other painkiller he'd had in his possession: beer.

The young hunter bounced his eyebrows briefly, his only outward acknowledgement of the hell he'd endured that night. He'd come close to calling his brother in desperation, blood spurting and gushing from the wound at a rate almost too quick for him to quell. But pride – and _fear_ – had stopped him. Sam probably wouldn't have answered anyway, and where would that have left him? And dad was out of the question. He was supposed to be _handling himself_ after all. Eventually he'd succeeded in closing the wound, light-headed and dizzy from the potent combination of alcohol and blood loss. He remembered collapsing onto the clean bed – he'd still rented twins, even after all that time – and sleeping for seventeen hours straight.

A bed sounded pretty good right then, he thought. Tiredness was sweeping over him in warm, sleepy waves. But the loneliness in the room was almost suffocating, the silence so heavy and humid that not even the television's full volume could banish it. He'd seen a bar on his way into town, he was sure. The perfect place to get so juiced that he wouldn't even notice the fact that he was returning to an empty motel room. Maybe he'd even charm himself some company while he was at it.

Decision made, Dean headed for the door. The pain in his leg forced him to limp forwards at a slower pace than he was used to, but there was no hurry. Dean was alone after all, he had no timetable to keep to except his own.

Pushing the pangs of habitual hurt aside, he flung open the door and marched outside.

o0o0o

Sam waited until he saw the decrepit-looking vehicle turn the corner; the car that Kevin Neilson had apparently traded his life to work on. And by the look of it, the mechanic had managed to do little more than provide it with some palliative care, more than likely improving its prognosis by just a few months. Even from his position several houses down, the young hunter had been able to feel its juddering, wheezing engine as it bounced along on rickety wheels. It was hardly the kind of vehicle one associated with a murderer, almost endearing in its unpretentiousness. But Sam still felt his jaw clench at the sight, entire body straining with the effort not to fire up the Impala and chase after the woman who'd hurt his brother.

He took a deep, calming breath and released his death grip on the steering wheel. No. He had a job to do, a now empty house to search. Giving himself a small, fortifying shake, he levered himself from the Impala, glancing around to assess his potential audience. He'd been checking periodically throughout the duration of his stake-out, but Fiona's exit had momentarily distracted him. The street was deserted, the mixture of wafting smells emanating from the surrounding houses indicating a high likelihood that those residing there were sitting down to dinner. A further, narrow-eyed examination of each dwelling garnered no signs of curtain-twitchers, and satisfied of his inconspicuousness, Sam stalked lithely across the road and began making his way towards his target. He stuck to the lengthening shadows amply offered by the plump trees and bushes that lined each garden boundary, head toing and froing as he moved, alert for any sound or disturbance.

Twilight was fast approaching, and the young hunter knew that his ruse wasn't likely to last long. He didn't think Fiona would wait for darkness to properly fall before deciding that the mysterious caller who'd contacted her with vital information relating to her mother's death wasn't coming. In the end, Sam had opted for the one lie he'd known she'd swallow. It hadn't been hard to figure out; the younger Winchester knew it would have worked on _him_ if it had been about Dean. He'd had to gulp back the lump of uneasy reluctance that had swollen in his throat as he'd made the call though. Manipulation was never something he enjoyed, even if it was for the murdering bitch who'd attacked his big brother. But...she'd sounded so friggin' hopeful when she'd answered his call, as if his news had been of a lottery win and not some tiny sliver of a lead. The young hunter shivered as he recalled how she'd thanked him – again blind-siding him with the sheer sincerity of it all – and he tried not to think of her scanning every nook and cranny of the quiet park where he'd sent her, eyes dimming with every disappointing second that passed. She hadn't wanted to leave her house, he remembered with a frown, had almost begged him just to tell her over the phone. Curious, but Sam wasn't willing to waste mental energy on the whys and wherefores. He'd gotten her out, that was the only thing that mattered.

Pausing at the bottom of Fiona's driveway, Sam couldn't help but think that the entire structure looked like the kind of children's playhouse he'd once seen at one of the rare birthday parties he'd been allowed to attend in his childhood; all chaste white walls, innocent picket fences and wide, guileless windows. It was a house, but it didn't look homely. There were none of the comfortable imperfections that came from somewhere truly lived in. No scuffs on the paintwork, no smudges on the windows, not a blade of grass out of place. Even the Impala, his brother's pride and joy, bore the marks of her homeyness; the smoothly worn groove on the driver's seat, the faded markings on the stereo dials, the used burger wrappers that lay just out of reach under the seats. It seemed strange that the woman would have such a rust-bucket of a car when she kept her house so meticulous, but then again, Sam could easily see his brother prioritising the Impala over any building he might ever have owned.

Dean.

The young hunter fought back a surge of fear as he wobbled precariously on the precipice over a life without his brother. He had to keep going, had to find the counter-spell that would cure Dean. He couldn't afford to waste any more time. Sam blinked away the grief that had been brimming in his eyes and blurring his vision, straightening his shoulders briskly before darting up the driveway and around to the rear of the house. The sky was growing darker by the second, and he welcomed the increased cover it afforded him even as he cursed the way time was flowing inexorably past him.

Stepping up into a tiny, quaint porch that made him feel like a fairytale giant, Sam stooped to pick the door lock. Squirming and twisting in the confined space, the process took far longer than it should have, but eventually the door was swinging gracefully open and Sam was charging through. The kitchen he discarded almost immediately after a cursory search of the drawers and cupboards. He hadn't quite been expecting to find a black magic grimoire in amongst _The Baker's Bible_ and _Superlative Salads_, but then, he'd found that women often had a strange logic to storing things. When he'd lived with Jess, items that had seemingly gone missing had, in reality, been 'tidied' by his girlfriend into a place he'd never have thought of looking. He frowned, pondering the various doorways down the corridor that led from the kitchen. This might take a while.

Sam squeezed his way down the narrow hallway towards what had to be the living room. He couldn't help but wrinkle his nose as he pushed the door open; the bowl of cloyingly sweet pot pourri on the mahogany coffee table itching insistently at his nostrils and choking his lungs as it hung in drapes from the air. The suffocating aroma, in combination with the partially drawn curtains, might have given the room the atmosphere of a carnival fortune teller, if it hadn't been for the frumpy, flower patterned sofas, and the over-abundance of lace doilies. Even in the gloom, Sam could see the tracks left by a compulsive neat-freak. He passed by a row of green candles, wondering fleetingly if their perfect symmetry had been ensured by gluing them in place. He hopefully scanned a corner bookcase, thinking of how easily he'd located Sue-Ann LeGrange's little book of horrors the previous year. It was a parallel he'd rather not have been reminded of.

Dean in danger yet again; sick, withering, vulnerable. A spell-book responsible for whether he lived or died...

Sam shook his head forcefully. "Focus!" He hissed sharply to himself, angry that he was allowing his mind to wander down too well-trodden paths. There were no books of interest on the shelves, the spines telling tales of a solitary soul; knitting, sewing, cross-stitch...nothing that spoke of a life beyond the insular. The young hunter sighed, merging his eyebrows as he tried to think of other possible hiding places.

A brief, assessing glance around the small study along the corridor revealed nothing of interest – the sparse, utilitarian contents speaking of a space hardly occupied – and he crossed the room off his mental checklist. Aside from a small dining area – another fleeting examination yielding the same clinical, barren aura that he'd expected – that left the upstairs rooms. Half-way up the carpet covered stairs – a Pepto-Bismol pink that ironically made him feel faintly queasy – he came to a halt, a sudden idea stopping him in his tracks. Jess...Jess had kept all of her most treasured mementoes in a small hat-box in their bedroom closet. He remembered coming across it one Sunday afternoon, feeling his heart swell in his chest as he'd surreptitiously examined the photographs, trinkets and cards, devouring this glorious insight into his girlfriend's past.

Closing his eyes briefly until the usual stab of loss subsided, Sam started upwards once more. Maybe, just maybe – not that a grimoire was in any way a precious keepsake – he'd find what he was looking for in Fiona's closet.

The floral trend continued upstairs it seemed, adorning curtain, cushion and comforter with the kind of busy, riotous pattern he was certain his befuddled brother would have been entranced by. And there was yet another image Sam wished he could banish. The bed was a single; a rather severe looking mattress with covers that looked as if they had been ironed into place. Resisting the sudden compulsion to put a dent in its smooth surface with the tip of his finger, Sam turned to cast a quick peek out of the dormer window. Lights were glowing from the surrounding houses, the rays spilling out onto the streetscape and softening the harshness of the street lamps' coarse flares. Nobody was around, nobody to notice the strange, gigantor shape that filled their neighbour's window. There was no sign of Fiona's return either, and safe in the knowledge that his time was not yet up, Sam moved to the closet. The large unit seemed to dominate the room.

Flinging the doors wide, the younger Winchester let out a frustrated huff of breath. In complete contrast to the orderliness of the rest of the house, the space was crammed with a great haphazard jumble of items: clothing, bags, shoes, bedding...It all looked as if it was in perfect equilibrium, that if one object was removed then the whole lot would tumble. Sam surveyed it fretfully, trying to find the point of greatest structural stability. What he wanted to do was dive straight in, raking and pulling at the contents until they spilled out and revealed what he was looking for. But secrecy was paramount, and it seemed unlikely that the woman would miss the resulting detritus from his foraging on her return home.

Biting his lip, he allowed his fingers to traverse the rugged, squishy wall before him, probing and prodding gingerly. He froze as a stack of hats teetered atop their cushioned base, hands held high over his head in readiness for the potential avalanche. Seconds later he cautiously pried his eyes open, letting out a soft "huh" when nothing disastrous befell him. Emboldened, he stepped forward once more to continue his quest. After an age of fruitless searching, his hands brushed across a box-shaped outline. He felt his heart quicken, the tips of his fingers turning abruptly nerveless as a sudden surge of stage-fright assaulted him. Could this be? Not willing to trust his luck – he'd been there and done that before, after all – Sam quickly banished all thoughts of hope to the outer extremities of his mind, along with any of its extended family: anticipation, optimism, confidence. He adjusted his grip and tentatively eased the box outwards from its snug nook, feeling as if he was performing keyhole surgery as he watched the pile of objects shift ominously above him. Inch by inch the container was freed, and Sam clutched it close with a relieved sigh, before remembering with a plaintive groan that he'd have to replace it once he was finished.

Setting what appeared to be a somewhat battered looking shoebox on a small dressing table in the corner of the room – it wouldn't do to ruin the bed after all – Sam unceremoniously ripped off the lid. And gaped.

Jesus, he'd been right. He'd actually been _right_. There it was, sitting atop a disordered pile of photographs and papers. It was only after he'd seen it that he realised part of him had doubted he'd find it at all, that he'd been mistaken about Fiona Adams. But son of a bitch, it was true!

The book was slim and tattered, its finely engraved cover splattered with stains that Sam wasn't keen on examining in great detail. The edges of its pages were rough and feathery, the aged parchment almost downy against the exploring tread of his forefinger. It was a deep, raven black in colour, and seemed to whisper sibilant horrors into the air as Sam shifted his position to catch the fading light from the evening sky. There was a wickedness about the small object that seemed to seep through the young hunter's skin and into his core. He thought briefly of Sauron's ring, and how its darkness could corrupt the gentlest of souls. Setting his jaw, he pushed aside his instinctive edginess and wrenched it open, hardly daring to breathe as he tore at its pages. The grainy vellum slid easily past his brisk fingers as he scoured the spidery writings and scrawled drawings, stomach clenching and popping as he took in their content. Spells for literally turning people inside out, spells for removing organs, spells to gain complete control over both man and beast, dead or alive. His muscles were pulled tighter than steel cables by the time he found what he was looking for.

"Holy crap," he murmured as he studied the spell, swallowing back instinctive bile as he noted the ingredients. Animal entrails, human blood, bones...all of it speaking of pure malevolence, of evil intent. He traced a finger along the words, Latin he was sure, though in what looked to be a dialect he was unfamiliar with. Some of the terms were similar enough to recognise, _insania_, _sentio_, _affectus_, _intereo_. Their meaning more than enough to confirm the action of the spell, to explain what was happening to his brother. _Madness_, _perception_, _emotion_, _decay_. It took a deep, steadying breath before he felt able to remove his eyes from the morbid incantation. He felt hope edging its way warmly back into his good graces, steadily melting away at the frozen block of horror that stood in its path. This was the key to saving Dean. All they had to do was find a way to reverse it, and he had complete faith that Bobby would know what to do. He allowed himself a small smile as hope finally broke through, the vice that had been permanently clamped around his heart since he'd realised the extent of his brother's peril beginning to loosen. Not completely, of course, Dean still being far from alright, but enough to enable the organ to flutter with eager encouragement.

Setting the book carefully aside, he made to replace the box's lid, stopping short when he caught sight of the photograph that had lain beneath the small tome. He plucked it from the container, holding it up to the light as he had the grimoire, the figure captured in mid-motion highly familiar from his research earlier in the day. It was Moira Evans, he was certain, the picture showing her pinched, frowning features as she stood unlocking her car in what was probably a mall parking lot. It looked to have been taken from some distance away. Sam's eyes widened as he pulled out another snapshot, this time of James Carruthers leaving by the front door of what was almost certainly his parents' house. Again, the shot had been snapped covertly, the slight blurring at the edges of the picture indicative of a poorly calibrated zoom lens. The third photograph that Sam pulled out, as expected, was of Evelyn Smith; the young woman caught mid-stride as she marched down an unidentifiable sidewalk, a laden shopping bag in each hand and a scowl marring her features. Robert Kingston hadn't escaped Fiona's snap-happy camera lens either it seemed, his image captured while he stood obliviously at a coffee stand somewhere downtown. Sam felt his lips tighten into a silent growl. As if he'd needed further proof, but now at least, he knew for sure that Fiona Adams had been responsible. She'd followed her victims, marked them, and assassinated them in cold blood. This was no crime of passion. Oddly though, there were no pictures of the other victims. No photographs of Dean. Sam felt his forehead crease as he rifled through the rest of the box's contents, he didn't quite know what to make of that.

Moving to close the box once more, he dropped the lid in surprise as his phone suddenly burst into vibrating, jangling life. More startled than he should have been, he let out a shaky exhale as he pulled the phone from his pocket with quivering fingers. The caller ID wasn't a surprise, he'd been waiting for his old friend to call in for an update, but he realised how absorbed he'd been in his findings, how disturbed he'd been by what he'd discovered. Hastily he moved to the window, scanning hurriedly for the return he feared he might have missed in his preoccupation, but the coast was still clear. Watching the easy gait of a closely huddled couple as they ambled past the house and deciding that they posed no threat, Sam cleared his throat and accepted the call.

"Bobby? I think I found–" he began excitedly, his widening smile abruptly snuffed out as the elder hunter immediately cut across him. His old friend sounded decidedly strange. Hesitant..._abashed_. Sam felt his mouth go dry as his body tensed in readiness to receive the blows of what had to be a bad news delivery.

"Sam..." The young hunter could almost see his friend shifting the cap on his head, fidgeting with the rim of its bill. That was never a good sign. Ever. "We got ourselves a problem."

Bobby had never been one for adding a spoonful of sugar.

Sam caught his breath as his stomach plummeted to the floor, taking his heart, lungs and throat with it. It was several moments before he was able to gather them up and reassemble them into some semblance of working order. "What? What happened?" He demanded, eyes flickering as his mind began speedily shuffling through the pack of potential horrors – all of them involving his brother, _always_ involving his brother; the cards he'd been dealt this time a mystery until Bobby played his hand.

"Your brother decided to take a walk." The words were pure Bobby; matter of fact, understated, gruff. But their delivery was muffled, as if the older man had angled himself away from the phone's speaker, as if he didn't want Sam to detect the unvoiced worry that lay heavily in his words. _Too bad_, Sam thought, struggling to make sense of his friend's economical response. _What the hell happened?_ Was what he'd wanted to counter with, but instead his shell-shocked brain refused to cooperate, stumbling blindly around in dumbfounded incoherence. "He–You–But–_What_?" Was all he could manage as his mouth tried to produce several different questions at once.

There was a loaded silence, the younger Winchester holding his breath until his lungs started to burn in protest, mutinously refusing to take in oxygen until Bobby had explained himself and reassured Sam that he really hadn't meant what the younger man _thought_ he had. Because Dean just couldn't–"Got a hell of a right hook. Knocked me colder than a polar bear's ass." Bobby sounded rueful now, almost amused, but again it was a deception. A con. Sam could still feel the unacknowledged concern, even stronger now than he had before.

It seemed to take an age for the meaning of Bobby's words to sink in, for Sam to fully process the implications of the other man's admission. He shook his head, racing mind skidding to a halt in a cloud of dust as it did a double take. _Right hook? Knocked...?_ His jaw swung open and shut like an unlatched gate in high wind. Jesus, had Dean really...? It wasn't a huge stretch, Sam conceded, Dean having taken a swing at _him_ the previous night. But oh god, what if Bobby had been hurt? "Are you alright?" He asked in a small voice, feeling suddenly childlike as he waited for the big, strong adult authority that Bobby had always been to reassure him that everything was going to be okay.

The veteran hunter didn't disappoint. "Nothin' a bottle of Jack won't fix," he muttered dryly, but Sam didn't think he'd have needed his psychic powers to be able to sense the devastated vibes that were radiating through the phone's speakers. He'd had more than ample practice at detecting deflective falsehoods from Dean, the master of _Everything's fine_ even when the walls were crumbling down around them. The younger Winchester bent his head forward, dropping it dejectedly into his free hand. What the hell were they going to do? Yet again he'd been duped by the illusion of good fortune. Dammit, why could they never catch a genuine, no-strings-attached break? Just when he'd finally located the one elusive thing they'd needed to save Dean's life, his brother had to go and friggin' disappear on them. Again. But wait...

Sam lifted his head, a frown twisting his forehead into a collage of patterned grooves. Something wasn't adding up. The last time his brother had tried to leave the room, he hadn't even had the presence of mind to unlock the door. He'd stood instead, frantically rattling at the useless handle, growing more and more agitated when it refused to do his bidding. Sam could remember that only too easily, and the painful breakdown that had followed. With the state Dean had been in, it shouldn't have been possible for him to just...take a walk. "Bobby...How did Dean get out?" He allowed his growing anger to rumble dangerously in the depths of his tone, tectonic lines of suspicion beginning to fracture and clash beneath the surface of his calm when his old friend merely countered his question with an uneasy silence. "Bobby?" He tried again, his low level quake beginning to crescendo into something that was fast approaching apocalyptic.

There was a sigh, and a scratch of bristly beard that Sam could hear even above the ever present static. Neither were positive indications; 'reticence' and 'Bobby Singer' being two concepts that Sam didn't think he had ever linked within the same thought. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the confession that was now almost certain. "I screwed up, Sam. Forgot to lock the friggin' door. When I came to, he'd taken off."

Sam let his eyes float shut with a gentleness that stood in complete contrast to the disastrous tempest raging within, clenching his free hand into a fist and bringing it up to his closed lips. Then he erupted, the full force of his worry and frustration blasting out from him as lava flowed, ash rained down, and the temperature soared. "God _dammit_ Bobby! You were _supposed_ to be keeping an eye on him! What were you _thinking _leaving the door unlocked? You know how dangerous it is for Dean to be outside right now. I mean, what the _hell?_!"

Sam's sudden explosion seemed finally to shake something loose in the older man. In the deafening lull that followed, the younger Winchester could almost picture Bobby drawing himself up to his full height, chest puffed out like a posturing bird. "Watch your tone, boy! You think keepin' your brother on a leash is _easy _when his marbles are rollin' all over the place? I ain't some kinda friggin' ninja Sam, and Dean caught me on the hop. Thought I was some kinda...I dunno, shifter or somethin'. Looked at me like I was Lucifer himself. I couldn't stop 'im, alright? Now are you gonna waste time bitchin'...or are we gonna get out there and _find_ your brother?"

Sam gasped back a lungful of air as he realised the truth of his friend's words. He was still angry – _furious –_ that Dean had gotten loose, but fear was firmly back in the driver's seat, and he wasn't about to let himself be diverted again. "Yeah. Right. Of course," he ground out brokenly, sweeping a hand through his hair as the enormity of their task settled down upon his shoulders. "Jesus...he could be anywhere." Recalling the events of the previous day, his frantic, desperate search for his runaway brother, Sam felt his vision start to burn as tiny pinpricks of tearful frustration began gathering at the corners of his eyes. He couldn't go through this again. He couldn't.

But he had to.

At lease he wasn't alone this time. "Okay, you go on foot, I'll meet you in the Impala."

o0o0o

_Thanks for reading! I'd love to hear your thoughts..._


	12. Back in the Fire

Yay! It's that time of the week again!

A million thanks to everyone who has supported this story by reviewing, favouriting and alterting, and especially to Sharlot who has been endlessly patient and encouraging, and who has helped me to become a better writer through her wonderfully insightful, witty and constructive comments.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 12 – Back in the Fire**

The cacophony was deafening.

Dean Winchester clapped both hands to his ears as the sounds seemed to lance sharply through his skull, scrunching his eyes and straining his jaw into a tight grimace as he fought to block them out. He stumbled blindly into the rugged stone wall he'd been using to guide him as his legs impulsively sought to part ways with the rest of his body, and he let out an incoherent groan of pain as his elbow rebounded off the harsh surface and sent him spinning off in another aimless direction. He felt a strange, throbbing sense of resentment at the wall's callous duplicity as he staggered away. Everything had been manageable when he'd had the wall. It had been solid; unyielding where the street around him instead had been a disco ball of shimmering colours and sparkles that seemed to blur together into an endless stream of gyrating, swirling, kaleidoscopic patterns. The wall had kept him from falling into the molten mosaic around him, it had anchored him in the whirlpool, comforting in its steadfastness. It had allowed him to focus on the feel of the stone beneath his fingers, had let him shut out the rest of the tumultuous world.

But now the blaring horns, and screeching tires, and booming bass beats, and boisterous yells, and smashing bottles, and clopping heels, and slamming doors were assaulting him from all angles. The world was a great stramash of gusting, buffeting, pounding noise. And now he was lost in it; the sensory information whipping around him like a whorling sandstorm, stinging grains that tore at his eyes, scoured his ears and corroded his skin. His surroundings seemed gritty and powdery, shapes and structures refusing to meld together with any solidity or regularity. What the hell was happening? He couldn't think beyond the pain, the disorientation. It was all he knew. He moved without direction or course, driven only by the purest instinct to seek shelter and safety from the maelstrom that bellowed around him.

Time seemed to stand still at the heart of the storm. Dean was the only one who moved, or so it seemed, every step an unlikely victory when his mechanics were sparking and stalling, the rough, unrefined grains of sensory sand seeping through the cracks to wreak havoc on his bodily wiring. He had no conception of how long he'd been adrift in that turbulent wilderness, no recollection of when or where or why or what. He only knew what he could feel, what he could sense. And everything was bombarding him, pelting him, blasting him.

He let out a startled growl when something hard and bulky slammed into his shoulder, sending him reeling off at a diagonal stumble.

"Hey! Watch it, jackass!" Dean felt more than heard the flaring hostility in the hurled words as they vibrated through his body, watched dizzily as they pulsed across his vision in psychedelic ripples of red, purple and blue, their swaggering thrower letting out a jeering cackle as the hunter scuttled away. "Man, that dude is _wasted_!"

The words, the impact, the pain...they seemed to revolve around his head in a zoetrope of repetitive motion as he staggered onwards, too afraid that the weight of the world would crush him if he stopped. _Thud...Watch it!...Wasted...Thud...Watch it!...Wasted...Wasted...Wasted._

Wasted.

His mind felt hollow, resonantly empty as the word echoed hauntingly in his ears, as it bounced from wall to cranial wall, gaining momentum in neither meaning nor authority. But his attention was inherently captured by it nonetheless, and he was acutely aware of the way it seemed to reset itself like a typewriter carriage, sliding back to repeat the cycle after line upon line of recurrent, monotonous text. Wasted.

"Wasted," he muttered out loud, groaning as the sound of his own voice trumpeted out to join the tuneless, strident symphony that continued to crash and bang around him like a child with a saucepan drum-kit.

"Yeah, you said it, dude!" Floated past on a trilling quaver of sound, and Dean whipped round, hands dropping from his head as he tottered backwards on feet that had started to produce their own bass rhythm of shooting pain. The hunter's unexpected proponent was already several yards away, his motion jerky and uneven as he seemed to shudder and flicker under the scorching heat of the orange street lamps above. The glow was sending tiny, stinging shock-waves across Dean's eyeballs until he was forced to squint against the onslaught. But still he could see the rippling figure's spasmodic retreat.

"Wasted," Dean grumbled once more, knowing that the word wasn't right, wasn't even _close_. But he couldn't find what he was looking for, his lexicon's bespectacled librarian looking blankly up at his enquiring mind from the dictionary it had been riffling through with an apologetic shrug. The figure meant something. It was something dead, something...wasted...no, something _dangerous_, something that should have been gone, but which was _back_.

The thing was wasted. No, it _wasn't_. Dean clenched his fists in impotent rage. It was...it was...

Rocksalt. He needed rocksalt! For the _spirit_. For the _vengeful spirit_!

Dean heaved a harrumphing sigh and began lumbering intently after his target, already annoyed at the time spent dawdling. How could he have been so stupid? Of course that was what it was. How had he managed to forget...? It was the reason he'd come to Des Moines in the first place, after all, to banish the ghost of a hit and run victim that had thus far claimed the life of an innocent driver every year on the anniversary of his death. The pattern had been ten years strong. Ten victims. Dean couldn't remember the name of the guy, a trifling detail he was sure he'd written down somewhere, but the boy been young, a teenager. A youth who'd been searching for his killer ever since. As much as the elder Winchester might have sympathised – but he didn't really, because the damn thing was killing people – he couldn't allow it to continue its rampage unchecked. He hadn't quite expected to cross its path so soon though, he'd only been on his way to the nearest bar for a series of mind-numbing nightcaps to drown out the insomnia of sleeping alone. The eleventh anniversary wasn't even until the following night...wasn't it?

Dean stopped dead, blinking harshly as his finely woven tale began to fray for the briefest of moments, before the next stitch was quickly laid and he was off again.

Maybe there had been something wrong with his calculations. But Dean wasn't going to sweat the details, not when he'd been lucky enough to just stumble across the murdering son of a bitch without expending any effort. The thing was there, right in front of him, and he figured he might as well blast it away before it could go and mangle up another car. Burning the body could wait, all he needed to do was stop it from playing out its own twisted death for another year. Dean patted his waistline, searching for the reassuring weight of his gun. His brows charged towards each other when he failed to locate its satisfying shape, locking horns and grappling like stags when he realised that he wasn't even wearing his jacket. It was freakin' January, what the hell was he doing in just a thin, cotton shirt? Dammit, he didn't even have his _duffel_. No rocksalt, no iron...he was so screwed. The elder Winchester cleared his throat decisively and nodded to himself. The odds were somewhere in the region of a snowball's chance, but he couldn't just let the ghost get away with killing someone else because of his own stupidity and lack of preparation – his father was going to be so proud. His first solo hunt since Sam had taken off for Stanford, and he hadn't even managed to _arm_ himself properly. Nice going.

He watched as the ghost flitted around an approaching corner and bit his lip, tasting the coppery tang of blood as he broke the skin in his agitation. He shifted hesitantly on the spot. There wasn't time to go back to the motel, so it looked like he was just going to have to implement one of his infamous off-the-cuff plans. The ones his father and brother were always tearing strips off him for initiating; Sam with his pursed, disapproving bitchface, and their father with his flashing eyes and booming censure. But Sam had pranced off to college without so much as a backward glance, and dad...well, John Winchester had marched off somewhere else, head held high. So what they didn't know wouldn't hurt them, even if it did hurt _Dean_.

Awesome.

The elder Winchester quickened his pace as best he could on soles that felt cratered and scarred, limping and swaying as his feet protested the slightest increase in weight. What the hell had he done to them anyway? Several faltering steps onwards and he was suddenly cringing as the bedlam around him clattered with unexpected intensity, and he lurched sideways to avoid it, trying all the while to keep an eye on the corner his prey had turned. Crashing into something wide and solid, and feeling its roughened surface scrape along his bare arm, the hunter realised with a triumphant smirk that he'd finally been reunited with his wall. Dean wasn't planning on holding a grudge this time, all would be forgiven if it would swallow its pride and lead him to his goal.

He splayed his fingers against the crinkled stonework and allowed his hand to dance across its surface like a spider as he started onwards once more. The motion calmed him, a soothing silence descending over him as a cocoon of absorption began to wrap around him. The world outside started to fade, shrinking until only the painful spiking from the carpeted shards of glass underfoot could penetrate his mental insulation. He reached the corner and peered around, edging forward until just one eye was past its boundary. With the wall beneath his finger tips, he could focus on his surroundings with refreshing clarity.

The ghost was still some distance away, but no longer moving, he noted with a solid thump from his flustered heart. He stood rigidly at the corner, waiting for the exhilarating sensation that always came from a shot of pure, anticipatory adrenaline to seep through his body. He could see the spirit standing with a huddle of other people, sputtering in and out of view as unknown figures moved past in irregular clusters. The hunter tensed, feeling his fingernails scrape harshly at the wall as he tried to make sense of what the spectre was doing. This didn't fit the pattern. It was just freakin' _standing there. _Dean ironed out his lips, swallowing convulsively as he tried to suppress the acidic fear in his gut that was always there no matter how much he told himself to man up, and stepped around the corner, shoulders squared, chin raised defiantly.

An impressively bold stance that lasted about as long as it took for one particularly large and cuspidate fragment of glass to become embedded in the butt of his heel as he strode forwards. "Aw, Jesus, dammit, freakin' son of a _bitch!_" He hissed in pained frustration, the litany growing steadily more virulent with every subsequent step. He didn't have time for this, he had to get to the spirit, had to stop it. With surprising dexterity, he reached down and plucked the shard from his stocking-covered heel with a smothered yelp and held it up for examination, eyes widening at the dull glint of crimson at its sharp, smooth tip. His surroundings seemed to retreat discreetly into the shadows as the fragment took centre stage, setting off a show-stopping routine of confusion and disorientation. How on earth had it penetrated through his boots? He wavered slightly, hand clutching desperately at the wall, as he twisted to peer at his feet. At the ripped, tattered cotton that was now barely clinging to his filthy, rusty toes. What the...?

There was a swooping sense of dizziness as he realised that he wasn't wearing shoes, and he found himself leaning heavily against the steadying surface beside him as he battled the sudden rush of pure wrongness that the recognition evoked. What the hell was happening to him? His mind froze, thoughts suspended in mid-animation as his subconscious scrambled to fix the unexpected technical glitch. A loud, jarring cheer erupted from somewhere down the street, and Dean flinched, his eye once again drawing a bead on his mysterious spectre – who was apparently enjoying whatever festivities had been responsible for the group's amusement. The image was enough to restore programming, and Dean straightened, his lack of appropriate footwear dropping from his mind like discarded litter.

He had a job to do: saving people, hunting things.

Saving people. He moved closer to the shapeless gathering of revellers, the ghost merrily enfolded in their midst, hurrying as best he could on his damaged soles. His eyes sought out his target and locked on, readying his torpedo fire.

Hunting things. The by-standers were little more than background detail to Dean as he left the wall behind with a great shove and barrelled towards the spectre, shoulders dropped, head pointing forward like a sprinter clearing the finish line. "Get away from them, you murderin' sonofabitch!" He roared furiously, utterly incensed at the gall of the thing to be walking blithely amongst the living, as if it had a right to be there.

The ghost was surprisingly...fleshy when Dean collided with it, their impact startlingly solid and physical as the hunter's momentum took them crashing brutally to the ground. There was the tiniest twinge of doubt in the elder Winchester's mind as he rolled off the spectre and began twisting his position in readiness for round two; the lack of friggin' transparency, of iciness, of _death_ itching uncertainly at him as he launched himself once more. But a raw, primitive anger was pounding through his veins, and he raised a clenched fist without thinking, snarling as he moved in for the kill. Without warning, his progress was abruptly halted as the surrounding gaggle of shouts and screams finally registered, and it was several bewildering seconds before he realised that he was being held and lifted. Arms were clamped around his chest like iron bars, keeping him prisoner as he was dragged backwards.

"What the _hell_?"

"Jesus Christ!"

"Doug, are you okay, dude?"

"Holy crap! Who the hell _is_ this?"

"Freakin' psycho came outta nowhere!"

"Somebody call the cops!"

"Dude's jacked up on something, man. We should just let him go and get outta here."

"Are you kidding me? This guy just dropped Doug! I'm gonna wipe the _floor_ with him!"

The voices twittered around his head like little cartoon birds as Dean dazedly fought the grip that was keeping him restrained. The waves of sound rose in a great crescendo until he no longer understood what was going on around him, fuzzing and buzzing in his brain like white noise. All he knew was that someone or something was holding him captive, and he began bucking and jerking frantically as the hostile grasp tightened. "Let me go, you bastard!" He howled wildly as one jabbing elbow finally hit its mark in the pudgy side of his rotund captor. There was a yowl of pain as the arms instantly dropped from across Dean's chest, and he immediately swung round to finish the job with a flailing fist, grinning ferally as he watched a bulky form topple to the ground.

The elder Winchester wasn't allowed to enjoy his victory for long however, as a glancing blow to the jaw from a left field opponent sent him reeling into a row of knobby, bony limbs that caught him instantly and began pummelling every inch of him they could find. His head snapped back as another whiplashing smack found his jawline, only to be forced reflexively forwards by a battering ram of a punch to the gut. His breath left him in a guttural grunt of pain, and Dean found himself folding under the raining fists that drenched his back and ribs as his lungs wheezily struggled to inflate. He gasped and choked as his knees buckled, groaning out in primal frustration and anger as cluster bombs of throbbing agony began erupting and exploding across his lower back. His kidneys took a merciless kick as his shoulder slammed down onto the serrated ground, glassy spikes digging through fabric and skin to become lodged there, grinding together painfully as he moved his arms over his head in instinctive defence. He curled in on himself, utterly incapable of doing anything other than simply enduring the abuse. Dean saw nothing, heard nothing. But he felt _everything_. Existence was pain. And yet, there was an almost peaceful sense of helplessness, a calm resignation that came from knowing that there was absolutely nothing he could do.

He was going to die.

"S'mmy," He moaned softly as the thought occurred to him too late. He was going to die, and Sam would probably never know. Sam, who had looked at him with such sorrow in his eyes when he'd turned away, backpack in one hand, bus ticket in the other all those months ago. Sam, who had used to look at him with such awe. Dean felt something trickle wetly from the corner of his closed eye, leaking a salty trail down his bruised cheek. He was never going to see his little brother again. There was so much that he wished he'd said.

Shadows were teasing at the edges of his consciousness, beckoning him down into their depths with long, wispy fingers. He ignored them at first, but their gesticulations became harsher, more insistent. And as a great bubble of pain popped in his chest, he finally allowed their hands to reach out to him, to caress him, to lead him silently towards oblivion.

All of a sudden there was an enormous, bellowing yell, and startled, Dean dropped his hands to his ears from where they'd been clasped protectively around the back of his head. One by one, the jackhammering fists ceased, lifting from his body as though being peeled back as one. There were yelps and yowls, thuds and wallops, smacks and thumps. Petrified, Dean stayed where he was, rigid and tense as he waited expectantly for his lights to go out. He jolted in shock as he felt a body crash over him, and he inched a lid open. Everything was linty and woolly, a white haze that seemed to cloud his vision like mist, but he thought he could just make out the sprawled figure of a man. The face was turned away, but Dean could see the darkened red that dripped from a sweeping gash on the other man's temple even through his own fuzziness. He tentatively started to lower his arms, managing to suppress his groan this time as his protesting muscles attempted to dissuade him from even the slightest of movements.

The elder Winchester flinched as he suddenly felt hot breath on the back of his neck. "Ughh," was the extent of his coherence as he tried to turn towards its source, unsure whether it signified friend or foe. A large paw eased underneath his arm and took hold, lifting him with unexpected gentleness. "Sammy?" His lips slurred the words drunkenly as his head spun, a chorus of bruises playing out across his body, leaving him no option but to allow himself to be manoeuvred.

"Take it easy, Dean. I got ya." The voice was scratchy and wheezy, and familiar in a vague and distant way. He'd heard it before, he was sure, but he didn't know where. But none of that mattered as he was finally set back on his feet, still curling inwards slightly as his stomach muscles cramped and clenched. "C'mon, Dean." Then his shoulders were braced by a tree trunk of an arm and he was being briskly nudged into forward motion. He coughed out a "Nnughhh!" of agony as each step added kindling to the fire of hurt that had spread throughout his entire body. But the arm would listen to no complaint, pushing him resolutely onwards until he was stumbling with the effort of keeping his feet.

"S'mmy?" He tried again hopefully, but it didn't sound like his brother. _Couldn't_ be his brother. There was a roughness about this unknown saviour that Sam would never have shown. And besides, Sam was in California. So who...?

A flash of blonde swept past his squinting eyes as he tried to look up at his rescuer, but the face was still an indistinguishable blob through the lingering fog that continued to blot Dean's vision. Again the sense of familiarity poked at him, but he brushed it aside impatiently. Whoever this was, they'd saved his life. He could worry about the whos and whys later.

The elder Winchester allowed himself to be hustled and propelled for a length of time that he wasn't aware enough to quantify – minutes and seconds had ceased to be recognisable a while back – and he felt himself floating into a pattern of mere existence. The only clue that any time had passed at all came when they stopped, signalling an end to one part of his journey and the beginning of another. Dean swayed on the spot as the buttressing arm was removed from his shoulders, arms and legs shaking involuntarily as his body's strength finally threw in the towel and bade him farewell. His buckling legs were sending all kinds of frantic signals to his brain, threatening imminent collapse, and he felt his mind flounder around in a hysterical panic as he tried to work out what the hell he was going to do about it. Suddenly, there was a click, and a creak, and then he was being jostled once more before his legs had the chance to follow through on their warning. "Get in, Dean."

It was a car...the recognition seemed to sprout out of nowhere. The Impala? Dean wondered, with a listless smirk. No, it was too high up to be his baby, he mused vaguely as he was pushed and prodded into position in a seat that was gloriously soft and luxurious. He felt his battered limbs sink into the depths of the squidgy leather and he almost groaned in pleasure as it cushioned his aching muscles. Dean stiffened as thick bands were promptly strapped across his chest, and he eyed them with bleary wariness until he recognised them as being nothing more than a seatbelt. Satisfied of their benignity, and of his safety, he settled back once more. His body was a painful motherboard of interconnected bruises and splits, sparking and humming with electricity as he shifted restlessly.

"We're going somewhere safe, Dean." The throaty voice soothed him, and blissfully reassured, he eased his head sideways to rest against the cool glass of the passenger window. "Go to sleep."

And so he did.

o0o0o

Sam's jaw ached. Since Bobby's call he'd been holding his face in the same pinched, sour arrangement that would have had Dean poking and nudging and needling and chuckling something about a change in the wind making Sam's hideous disfigurement permanent. He sighed heavily through his nose – unwilling to unclench his teeth even to _breathe_ – and glanced at the still empty passenger seat, waiting for the teasing that he knew wasn't coming.

The journey downtown seemed tortuous and interminable, the evening commute crawling nose to tail along the steadily darkening street. His view out the windshield was a montage of splodgy reds, whites and oranges that seemed to merge and flash before his eyes, sending little blotted splatters of colour dripping across his vision as he turned to scour the sidewalks on either side of him. He blinked impatiently, annoyed at his inability to see anything beyond shuttered shop fronts and the blurs of anonymous pedestrians. If he'd thought searching for Dean in the daylight had been challenging, finding his brother in the darkness, amongst evening crowds of revellers was going to be damn near impossible.

He swallowed heavily, the quiver of his Adam's apple the only movement he allowed as he tried to prevent the hastily gobbled candy bar he'd forced down during his stakeout at Fiona's house from making a dramatic reappearance. He could taste his stomach's displeasure at the back of his throat, the acidic bile collecting there beginning to burn menacingly. He couldn't believe he was here again, frantically swinging his eyes back and forth like a metronome as he desperately combed the streets for any irregularly moving shape, for the familiar set of his brother's shoulders...for danger. He wasn't under any illusions now, not after Dean had attacked Bobby. His big brother wasn't only a threat to himself, he was a threat to everyone else too. And Sam didn't know what worried him more. Dean would never forgive himself if he harmed an innocent bystander, and they couldn't afford to draw any more police attention, not after Baltimore. There was an ever present fear that the cops would pick Dean up, thinking he was drunk or high, and then figure out who he really was.

But Sam was kidding himself if he thought he was more worried about that than he was about Dean getting hurt. He only had to remember the state he'd found his big brother in before. If anything happened to Dean, he didn't know what he'd–

The younger Winchester nearly leapt out of the driver's seat when his phone burst into life, and he hurriedly slammed on the brakes to stop himself from ploughing into the back of the tootling soccer-mom mobile in front.

"Jesus Christ, Bobby! Are you trying to kill me?" He squeaked into the speaker, his voice breathy from the effort of suppressing the almost hysterical laugh that waited with hand-flapping, wide-eyed panic at the back of his throat.

Bobby sounded characteristically unimpressed by Sam's theatrics. "No, but I _will_ if you don't get your ass over here and pick me up! I feel like I'm gettin' cirrhosis just _lookin' _at all these yahoos. Most of 'em are half gone already."

Sam glanced into his rearview mirror and realised that he was bitchfacing at thin air, he pursed his lips and wondered if it was possible to send the expression telepathically. He _was_ the psychic one after all. "Well I'm glad you're enjoying the sights, Bobby, but we kinda have a job to do. Like finding my brother."

"Alright, alright. Don't fly off the handle, Sam," Bobby countered dryly, the tone of his voice indicating in no uncertain terms that he'd received the younger man's unspoken message loud and clear. He let out a low sound of frustration. "I've _been_ lookin', but there's no sign of 'im. Nobody's seen 'im. Been past about a half dozen bars. He ain't there, and he ain't _been_ there so far as I can tell. How far out are you?"

Sam eyed the scene before him with impatient disdain, the impenetrable mass of vehicles in front spreading into the distance like an advancing battalion. "Damn traffic, Bobby! It's friggin' gridlock. I'm going to have to take a different route. Stay on Main and I'll call you when I get there." He snapped the phone shut before the elder hunter could object, and slid it absently into his jeans pocket. Returning his attention to his surroundings, he spotted a grimy-looking alleyway tucked surreptitiously between the glowing, neon red Xs of an adult book store and a modestly shuttered children's clothes store. Shaking his head in mild disbelief at the inappropriateness of the juxtaposition, he attempted to judge the width of the small passageway, trying to gauge whether the Chevy's broad girth would be able to squeeze through. He felt the car shudder beneath him at the thought, and Sam cocked his head in silent query. It wasn't the first time that day that he'd almost believed she'd heard him.

Jesus, he needed to get his big brother back behind the wheel straight away. Before he truly started believing that the classic car had the kind of sentient presence that _Dean_ was always insisting she did. He shook his head again with a self-deprecatory eye roll, furrowing his brow when he felt the same quivering reluctance in the Chevy's gas pedal. "Sorry girl," he muttered before he could stop himself, biting his lip in silent reprimand. If Dean ever found out he'd actually spoken to the Impala, Sam would never live it down. God, he missed his brother. He sent up a wordless prayer, wondering if whoever was listening would take him seriously and give him back his brother if he promised to tell Dean about his slip with the Impala. He sighed when his big brother failed to miraculously materialise in the passenger seat, but he let his hopeful gaze linger there nonetheless.

He slowed on the approach to the narrow passage, ignoring the irritated chorus of trumpeting horns and waited for a gap he could slither through. Screeching ostentatiously through a brief break in the flow of traffic with a finesse Dean would have been proud of, Sam guided the Chevy into the alleyway, realising belatedly that he hadn't considered the possibility of a gate or fence blocking his way. Thankfully however, his path remained free of obstacles as he eased his brother's pride and joy past dirt encrusted, graffiti-scrawled walls, all the while waiting tensely for the tell tale grind of metal against brick. But again luck seemed to have taken pity on him. _About time_, he grumbled huffily, annoyed that fate would let him have these little victories while denying him the ones he really wanted.

Like Dean. Safe and healthy.

He emerged from the passage onto a much quieter thoroughfare, and bolstered by his increased breathing space, Sam allowed the Impala to turn heads as she roared fiercely down the street. Maybe Dean would hear her, wherever he was. Maybe some part of him would be unconsciously drawn to her frantic call. He wasn't about to let himself picture his brother cowering in another doorway somewhere, insensible and unreachable, and he violently struck each memory aside as they flew at him like balls in a batting cage. He couldn't afford to be distracted, each image he let himself pay attention to was time he wasn't spending scanning the crowds.

He headed for Main street, ducking and diving through a gauntlet of weaving taxi cabs, zig-zagging jaywalkers and a dumpster that had inexplicably rolled out into the middle of the road, all the while exchanging another terse conversation with Bobby. The veteran hunter had apparently chanced across an eyewitness who claimed to have seen Dean lurching along the sidewalk in tattered socks, clutching at the wall and muttering agitatedly to himself. Though it had been nothing less than he'd expected, the description still cratered Sam's brow. There was something nauseating about hearing it from a random stranger, someone who didn't know that Dean wasn't himself; someone who might look at him with contempt, not realising that the elder Winchester was hurting rather than stumbling around in drug-induced disorientation.

But more than that, it cut right to the heart of Sam's failure, his inability to look after Dean when he'd most needed it.

Bobby's flushed face was marbled with blotches of pockmarked puce when Sam pulled up at the kerb, the elder hunter was practically bent double, huffing and puffing as though he'd just crossed the finish line of a hundred metre sprint. Despite his urgent concern for Dean, Sam couldn't help the smirk that tugged at the corner of his lips; an expression he might have easily been able to quell had Bobby not chosen that precise moment to glance up and nail him with a disgruntled scowl. The older man's brow was glittering under the reflected light of the street lamps and bar signs, and Sam could see the damp hair plastered to Bobby's skull as the elder hunter adjusted his cap.

"Looking good, Bobby. You'll be running the marathon in no time!" A light chuckle was yet another expression of mirth that he couldn't quite suppress, thinking that Dean probably wouldn't blame him if he knew. Hell, Dean would have been offended if Sam _hadn't _taken the opportunity to rib their old friend. But the reminder of just why Bobby had been in such a hurry dampened his spirits once more and he sobered as the older man levelled him a stern glare.

"You're gonna need to give me a little more warnin' next time," Bobby grouched as he wrenched the door open with a grating screech, causing more than a few raised eyebrows from the group of smokers clustered beside the doorway of a nearby bass-thumping club.

"What, why?" Sam raised his eyebrows in confusion as the elder hunter plopped down next to him with enough force to shake the Chevy's entire frame.

"So that I can get my _laugh_ prepared."

Bobby.

Sam swivelled his head in a see-saw acknowledgement of his friend's comeback, but the motion was distracted, on autopilot as his mind shifted gears towards their objective. The younger Winchester beamed a quick, assessing glance at his passenger as he pulled back onto the street. Despite his earlier teasing, Bobby did not look well, and Sam found himself swallowing back a jagged lump of concern. Dean _had_ knocked the older man out after all.

"Are you alright, Bobby?" The soft query had left his lips before he had the chance to appraise its advisability. Bobby could be even more cantankerous than _Dean_ when it came to admitting injuries. He winced reflexively, keeping his eyes pinned to the windshield as he readied himself for the sting of the barb he was sure would be heading his way. After half a second of silence, he relaxed his hunched shoulders infinitesimally and turned to study his friend with questioning eyes.

"I'm fine, Sam," Bobby murmured with a seriousness that always made Sam's heart take wing-flapping flight. That he doubted the truthfulness of the response was a given, but Sam had always considered a subdued Bobby Singer to be akin to one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. He knew though, that the elder hunter was unperturbed by his possible concussion. This was all about Dean, and Sam began to wonder if he'd truly gotten the whole story about what Bobby had really heard from his conversation with the eyewitness. Not that his friend would tell him even if he pestered and wheedled and flicked open his full-beam puppy dog headlights. Bobby could be as bad as Dean when it came to protectiveness. It was infuriating.

"Okay," Sam conceded defeat with a shallow nod but continued to eye Bobby speculatively in his periphery. "So where did this guy say he'd seen Dean again?"

"Few blocks down. Said he saw him turn along Jefferson," The veteran hunter was adjusting his cap again, pulling the bill up and down, shuffling it around on the spot. The action was so fundamentally familiar to the younger Winchester – a tell he'd easily learned to read from many a covertly observed argument between his father and surrogate uncle as a child – but its agitated motion was less so; a sign of how much Dean's disappearance had affected him.

Sam knew the feeling.

They journeyed under the heavy atmosphere of a growing pressure cyclone, the muggy air between them stifling and oppressive. Neither man spoke as the Chevy's engine rumbled around them like a low, sonorous thunder. Frequent peeks across at Bobby's tense form revealed the older man to be deep in thought. Sam remained silent, not wanting to disturb Bobby in the task he excelled at the most. As long as the elder hunter could find something to think about, some avenue they hadn't yet explored, Sam wouldn't lose hope.

They turned the corner onto a street that seemed to shimmer with a ground frost of broken glass. The tiny shards glinted and twinkled under the harsh beam of the Impala's headlights, and Sam felt his stomach shrivel with phantom pain as he imagined his shoeless brother treading this way. If Bobby's appalled expression was anything to go by, he seemed to have suffered a similar technicolour realisation. Sam sent his eyes on a reconnaissance of their surroundings, noting the graffiti that seemed to spread in mouldy patches along the walls, the discoloured wooden planks that boarded up many a shop window. And felt his head begin to swoop and swell like roiling waters. Suddenly he really didn't want to find Dean here, didn't want his vulnerable brother to have wandered into this urban quagmire.

But the sudden shift in Bobby's posture beside him was enough to dash any thoughts of coming across Dean safe and well. "What is it?" Sam demanded, brows shunting together like bumper cars as he gripped the steering wheel tighter.

The elder hunter nodded towards a hodgepodge huddle of men that appeared to be listing and lurching in various stages of disrepair as they staggered up the sidewalk, heading the way the Impala had just travelled. "I might not have your psychic mojo, Sam, but I'm gonna take a wild stab in the dark and say that Dean's been here."

Sam narrowed his eyes, taking in the oozing wounds, purpling bruises and cradled limbs. And agreed. He couldn't have said how he knew, and he might even have dismissed it entirely as being a figment of his over-active _Dean's-in-danger_ imagination, if Bobby hadn't seen it too. The clincher hit him seconds later. The bruise on the jaw, already a muddy stew of yellow and purple, of one of the men. His brother's friggin' pièce de résistance; the one that could drop a sumo wrestler in one, economical blow. He'd have recognised it anywhere. But there was more than one opponent in the motley bunch that wobbled up the sidewalk. And a sudden, heart-stopping thought seemed to halt all other mental processing.

Oh god, what had they done to Dean?

"Sonofabitch!" Sam spat, anger steaming and squealing within him like an over-boiling kettle, as he stomped down on the gas pedal and careered with a great, dramatic production of screeching tyres towards the ramshackle crowd. He swerved the car to a grinding halt mere inches from the calf of a burly, grimacing man who was shuffling along in a painful looking half-hunch. The man took several stumbling steps backwards as his slowed reflexes belatedly picked up the approaching threat, sending him barrelling into several of his fellows, who dropped in perfect succession like a line of dominoes.

Sam was out of the car before the Impala had even recovered her momentum from the sudden stop, striding around the hood and bearing menacingly down on the dazed, groaning crowd. The danger that sizzled the air around him was palpable even to himself, and he gloried in the way the men seemed to cringe away from him. He didn't quite know what he'd planned to do, but he was pretty sure it would have involved some cracked knuckles and an assortment of weaponry, if Bobby hadn't stepped in front of him at precisely the right moment.

"FBI!" The veteran hunter boomed authoritatively, flicking out a badge with a speed that wouldn't have allowed even the most eagle eyed observer to see more than a flash of blue and white. Convincing the bleary-eyed barflies wasn't likely to be a hard sell. Sam felt himself stutter to a halt as he considered his friend's quick thinking, not sure whether he was impressed at Bobby's ingenuity or irritated that the older man had stopped him from exacting some well deserved retributive justice. Sam decided that respect was definitely pipping indignation to the post however, especially when the downed men appeared to require no further convincing.

"We're looking for this man, have you seen 'im?" Bobby passed a photograph of Dean to the nearest thug – the tubby wearer of Dean's badge of honour – who stared gormlessly up at him for several beats before finally withering under the heat of Bobby's scorching glower and reaching for the picture. Watery eyes dopily scanned the image before widening sharply in recognition.

"That guy? Was a freakin' psycho, man!" Chubby jowls bounced and quivered enthusiastically as the man eagerly tried to explain himself, and he puffed out his chest proudly at his ability to deliver the goods to these clearly important men.

Sam must have made an involuntary move towards the man who had apparently tussled with his brother, because Bobby immediately shot out an arm to hold him back. The younger Winchester ground his teeth at the restraint, but nevertheless complied, realising that they'd need to bide their time in order to get the information they were looking for. In the end he settled for a silent snarl, which he directed to each man in turn.

"He like, came outta nowhere and attacked Doug!" The bulky man gestured towards a wiry, rodent faced man who gave a small, embarrassed wave, looking like he wanted the glass-covered ground to open up and swallow him whole.

Bobby's expression didn't change, but Sam could sense the foreboding fury that lay just beneath the surface. "Then what happened?"

"Well, we uh, we fought back," The response was stammering and nervous, but there was an air of cautious self-righteousness about the delivery nonetheless. And it was that smugness that riled Sam the most.

"_Seven to one_?" The younger Winchester burst out, barely keeping a hold on a suddenly serpentine rage that was spitting venomously and out for blood.

"Naw, man!" Another of the injured piped up, wiping a trickle of still weeping blood from a cut above one bushy eyebrow. His eyes were wide and zealous as he leaned forward to punctuate his point with a scratched fist. "He had another dude helping him out."

Sam went rigid, heart colliding in a catastrophic hit and run with his ribcage. "What?" He ground out. Somehow he knew that this was more than Dean merely having been lucky enough to encounter a good Samaritan on a street like this...with some sort of unlikely, Jet Li, ninja-esque qualities. Dread hardened in his stomach as he felt Bobby tense along with him.

"I'm telling you, dude was built like a tank."

"Describe 'im," Bobby commanded sternly, pinioning the scrawny man with piercing eyes.

"Uh, it all happened pretty fast..." He began, before petering out when he saw Bobby's lips straighten in dissatisfaction, and then he was off again, the words now freely tipping forth in his uneasiness. "Tall, long blond hair–"

"A beard," Doug cut in, nodding his head vigorously. "He had a beard. And a weird, _scar_ thing above his eyebrow, like a half moon or something."

Sam's heart had recovered from its head on collision, and was now anxiously leap-frogging into his throat as he glanced from his friend to the sprawled group of men and back again. Seeing the flash of recognition strobe quickly across Bobby's face, Sam swallowed thickly, fear congealing nauseatingly with the dread already solidifying in his gut. "You know him?" He demanded, clutching intently at the elder hunter's shoulder with a clawed hand.

"I know 'im," Bobby confirmed in a low voice, turning away from the others with a dismissive wave. "And he ain't no friend of Dean's."

The two hunters exchanged a dark, loaded look, before Bobby returned his attention to their witnesses. "How long ago was this? Where did they go?"

Doug seemed to sense the volatile atmosphere that had begun billowing around the two 'government' men, and he cleared his throat tentatively. "Uh, they left together. 'Bout an hour ago, maybe? Went down that way, I think," He pointed back in the direction his group had been walking from. "I don't know what they did after that."

"What's this about?" The pudgy man was muscling in this time, the frown that crinkled his brow breaking the dawning suspicion that had been sluggishly building in his gaze. But one harsh scowl from Bobby was enough to send him skittering away, tail between his legs, and he lowered his eyes submissively.

"That'll be all," The elder hunter announced shortly, turning to skewer Sam with a warning look. The younger Winchester nodded sharply; message received.

With barely a backward glance at the downed men – his desire to extract his pound of flesh utterly obliterated in the wake of this new, more sinister threat to Dean – Sam whirled and hurried back to the Impala, aware of Bobby doing the same a few steps behind. The worry for his brother was setting his teeth on edge, and they chattered involuntarily around the hitching in his agitated breaths as he clambered into the car. Someone had Dean; had simply _plucked_ him off the street. Someone Bobby knew. Someone who had not merely rescued his big brother from the midst of a beating out of the goodness of their heart, Sam was sure. But who? And why? And what did they want with Dean? And where would they have taken him?

The young hunter managed to keep a lid on the questions that were jumping up and down, waving their arms and clamouring to be heard on the tip of his tongue until he'd violently forced the Impala from the kerb with a vehement stamp of his foot. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the measured way that his friend was assessing him, but he didn't care. "Bobby...Who the hell is this guy? Who has Dean?"

The older man ran a finger along the bristles on his chin and let out a short, brittle sigh. "From what I figure, his name's Jud Hollis. Grade-A moron who thinks even his crap don't stink. Gets hair and make-up tips from Dog the friggin' Bounty Hunter..." Bobby trailed off at Sam's blank expression.

"I don't know who that is."

"He's a...never mind," Bobby rolled his eyes impatiently. "Jud, well, he's always had a beef with Dean. Knew your daddy, worked with 'im a few times, but he never thought your brother was good enough for the hunt. You probably wouldn't remember 'im, I reckon the last time your paths crossed proper was before you went off to college. Dean's run into 'im a few times since though, or so I hear."

Sam's weaving pupils were tapping out a Morse code report of rising concern as he assimilated this new information. That Dean had made a few enemies over the years was hardly surprising – though the knowledge made Sam's fists clench with the protective urge to go and teach a few lessons on his brother's behalf – but there was still something that left his forehead twisted in confusion. "Okay, I get that he has a problem with Dean. But why would he take him, Bobby? What's this jerk even _doing_ in Peoria?"

This time the elder hunter's sigh was grave and heavy as he rubbed out the crunching kinks on the back of his neck. "He's close with Gordon Walker, Sam. Like, _Riggs and Murtaugh_ close. I'm guessin' that's the reason he's here."

At his young friend's surprised intake of breath, he let out a wry chuckle. "I'm not an idjit, Sam. Ellen called. Told me all about what Walker did."

Sam was silent for several moments, chewing on his bottom lip as memories drifted like spectres before his eyes; the strain in Dean's voice over the phone as he gave out their codeword...the barely suppressed hurt in the tautly uttered '_You ditched me, Sammy'_...peering through the wooden slats of the derelict house to see his big brother gagged and tied to a chair...an armed Gordon Walker guarding the entranceway...the way Dean had looked at him after Sam had freed him from the chair, like he was gulping down the sight of his little brother.

"This is my fault," he murmured bitterly, with a harsh exhale through flared nostrils.

"Sam–" Bobby began, but halted when Sam shook his head tightly.

"Gordon was after _me_, Bobby! It's why he took Dean in the first place. Bait," Sam blinked furiously, the anger at someone – anyone – using his brother like that making his blood froth. Never mind the fact that Dean seemed to walk around with the word tattooed on his forehead, many times of his own deliberate doing. "And I'll bet you anything that's why _Hollis_ grabbed him." He slapped his uninjured hand against the steering wheel hard enough to send burning tingles across his palm. Why did Dean always have to get hurt because of him?

Bobby raised a finger and had opened his mouth – to object in all likelihood – when Sam's phone suddenly sprang into activity. The younger Winchester hastily pulled over with a jerk of his wrist, catching sight of the unknown number on the caller ID. He had a feeling he was going to want to have all his attention on this one.

"Sam?" Bobby queried, eyeing the phone suspiciously.

"I think it might be him..." Sam muttered nervously. He touched gazes with Bobby, exaggeratedly putting a finger to his lips before before accepting the call on speaker. There was a brief hiss of fizzing static before a gravelly, wheezy voice cut through the air like a chainsaw.

"Hey there, Sammy."

The young hunter gulped back the vitriolic curse that sprang immediately to his lips and tried desperately to project a veneer of calm. He couldn't let the bastard know how upset he was. "Jud Hollis, I presume. I'd ask how you got this number, but I reckon I can work it out. Made any calls to Lafayette recently?"

There was an incoherent rasp of surprise before Hollis recovered his aplomb with a mocking chuckle. "My, my, my...I gotta say, I'm impressed. Guess Gordon was right about you after all, Sammy-boy. You really _have_ got some kinda psychic mojo goin' on."

The mention of Gordon was enough to confirm his fears, and to blast a hole straight through all his good intentions of remaining unruffled, the desire to know that his brother was okay obliterating any sense of strategy. "Where is he, Jud?"

Another throaty snigger filled the Impala's interior, making Sam's fingers twitch with the desire to throttle his brother's kidnapper. "So we're skippin' the small talk, huh? Where's who, Sammy?"

"I know you have my brother, Jud. Tell me where he is, right now!" The younger Winchester growled furiously, feeling Bobby's restraining hand on his arm as his muscles coiled and writhed like snakes. He could almost hear his old friend telling him to tone it down.

"You're the one with all those freaky powers, Sammy. _You_ tell _me_."

But the smug hubris of the man seemed to burrow its way right underneath Sam's skin, crawling beneath the surface of his epidermis like a parasite. "Cut the crap, Jud. What have you done with him?"

There was a low whistle. "Is that any way to speak to the guy who saved your brother's bacon? Dean got himself into a bar fight downtown. Those guys woulda killed him if I hadn't _generously_ stepped in. He's in a pretty bad way though, Sammy. They messed him up good. But I'm through babysitting, you should really come by and pick him up."

The casual description of his brother's injuries was almost more than he could bear, his fevered imagination already running amok through a field of endless horrors.

"I swear to god, if you've–" Sam snarled, the thought of Dean – especially as confused and as vulnerable as he was – in the hands of one of Gordon's friends stoking his already ferociously raging fire.

But Jud leisurely cut across him as if he hadn't even heard the younger man's impassioned words. "Oh, and you might want to hurry, Sammy. Dean's been a little...upset. I've had to restrain him for his own good, and you know, if he were to get loose somehow...go on the offensive...I'd have to defend myself. Come to think of it, maybe I should just put him out of his misery–"

Sam crushed the phone in a furious fist, the outer casing cracking ominously under the pressure. "You do anything to him, you sonofabitch, and I _will_ kill you. Understand me? Now what do you want?"

Again Jud guffawed unconcernedly, an intensely irritating sound that seemed to wrap around the young hunter's neck like a noose. "Sammy, Sammy, Sammy...Don't get your panties in a bunch. It's very simple: I want you to come here, and I want you to give yourself up. No lies, no tricks, no tripwires."

Sam swallowed, his voice hardening. "And if I don't?"

Jud seemed to turn serious for the first time, the roughness in his voice pouring forth like a rockslide. "Do you really need me to answer that, Sammy? You come to me, alone and unarmed, and I won't kill your brother. Capisce?"

Sam exchanged a frantic glance with Bobby, before grunting out a grudging "Fine!"

"There now, Sammy. Was that so hard? I'll text you the coordinates. Oh, and Dean says 'Hey'."

The click of the disconnected call seemed to crack through the air like a gunshot, and both men flinched involuntarily. Sam closed his eyes, a hard, rubber ball of nausea bouncing around in the pit of his stomach. Bobby left him to his own ruminations for a blessed few minutes before tentatively breaking the silence.

"So how do you wanna do this, Sam?"

Sam raised his head from where he'd rested it against the cool surface of the steering wheel, his thoughts orbiting somewhere above them in the stratosphere. It was several seconds before he could return to Earth to process his friend's question, worry for Dean permeating every pore of his consciousness. "How do I want to do what?"

Bobby cocked his head with affected pensiveness. "Uh, let me think about that for a second...How about...getting Dean outta there?"

Sam gazed at the phone in his hand, barely even twitching when it buzzed with the incoming message. He set his jaw determinedly and twisted to regard the older man with a level gaze.

"Easy, Bobby. I'm going to give myself up."

o0o0o

_Yeah, I know, another cliffhanger...more to come next week! Thanks for reading!_


	13. Cold Hearted Man

Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favourited and alerted this story. I cannot adequately express my appreciation and gratitude for your kindness and encouragement.

Sharlot gets an extra, extra special thank you for casting her magic beta spell over this chapter, and for her generosity, pep talks and all round awesomeness.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 13 – Cold Hearted Man**

The mouldered walls flaked like dry skin, chipped paint scattering the floor in curled, dandruff speckles. Jud Hollis paused to scrape several clumps from the ridged soles of his boots as he creaked across rotten floorboards that were warped and twisted like gnarled fingers. The space felt flimsy, as if a stray gust of wind would send the whole structure crashing to the ground. Inky shadows blotted the corners of the room – the decrepit shack having just one main living area – making it feel more confined with every darkening second. There was a faint smell of manure in the air, the kind of lingering stench that was more than likely left over from the property's farming heyday; _probably some time back in the Jurassic era_, Jud muttered internally as he wrinkled his nose with a dry cough and spat out a great gob of sputum in disgust.

He was in dire need of a cigarette, but he'd been so eager to get his prize back to the house and into position that he'd neglected to pick up another pack during his mad dash from Peoria. Besides, Jud hadn't wanted to risk leaving Dean Winchester unattended in the car, even dozing soundly as he had been, bleeding nose bubbling and popping wetly as he'd snored softly against the passenger window.

Jud picked at his fingers restlessly, shifting from foot to foot as he tried to ignore his body's call for nicotine. He could almost taste the desire at the back of his throat, the tang remaining even after repeated attempts to cleanse it with heaved gulps and thick swallows. The hunter bit his lip and moved to the window, the floorboards crinkling a xylophone melody underfoot as he walked. The landscape outside was as barren and lifeless as it had been the last time he'd looked, the deadened grass matted and and brown against earth that had been too long without sustenance. But for the moon and a light dusting of stars, the plain was engulfed in a compelling darkness, making the hunter feel as if he might be sucked upwards into it if he were to set foot outside.

There was no sign of Sam Winchester. Not yet anyway. And Jud had no doubt that the younger Winchester would keep his end of the bargain eventually. He permitted a slow, satisfied smile to creep across his features as he recalled the barely restrained panic in the younger man's voice. It was too good, the power he'd held then; the power he _still_ held. He was going to have a lot of fun with this, when Sam eventually dragged his ass to the coordinates Jud had sent. He just wished the kid would hurry up so that he could wrap this whole, inconvenient gig up and then find an anonymous watering-hole where he could nurse a whisky and smoke himself into a wheezy stupor.

As his eyes pinballed across the view, bouncing from the grand outline of his SUV, to the skinny shadows of anorexic poplars that stood like a row of crooked teeth along one side of the surrounding field, he became aware once more of the jangling, rattling sound that he'd been trying to block out for the past half hour. A clinking of metal against metal, bouncing and tinkling with an irregular rhythm which – now that he had noticed it again – was intensely irritating. His eyes brightened at the realisation of a potential distraction from the severity of his craving, and he turned

to stare back across the dingy space towards the source of the racket.

A shaft of moonlight slashed the drooping room in half from a broken skylight in the bowed ceiling, giving Jud's fidgeting, muttering companion centre stage as he tugged fitfully at his cuffs. The rickety bed creaked and complained with every wrench of Dean's wrist, the wrought metal frame it was chained to twitching this way and that with the younger man's fevered movements. Despite what Jud had intimated to Sam, he'd only really needed one cuff to keep the elder Winchester under control. And occupied, it seemed. Dean had done nothing but pull at it since they'd arrived, battered features wrung tighter than a soaked cloth and saturated with fevered agitation. The skin around the younger man's right wrist was now grooved and shredded, blood drooling in lazy rivulets down his arm and onto the mouldy mattress. He sat hunched and contorted on the edge of the bed, his free arm braced across his middle, no doubt an unconscious attempt to support the bruised or broken ribs he had, in all likelihood, sustained during the fight. Jud had found it all quite entertaining at first – the cocky, swaggering, devil-may-care sonofabitch being reduced to a drooling, twitching mess – before the constant jiggling and twanging had left him wishing he'd brought along some form of heavy-duty tranquilliser. He flexed his fingers, watching as his bruise-dappled knuckles rippled smoothly, and thought that maybe he wouldn't need chemical assistance after all.

He moved with a lithe grace that belied the muscly solidity of his body, the floorboards protesting each step with animated tinkles. Dean didn't look up at his approach, instead staring at the same patch of dried paint flecks on the floor that he had been since Jud had shackled him there. His pupils were frozen in place, fixed on the freckled pattern with a fascination that suggested he was seeing so much more there than mere decay and atrophy. Closer now, Jud could see the way Dean's lips were spasming, fluttering and twisting around a mantra of softly murmured words that the older man had to lean close to hear properly. He raised his eyebrows in mild interest, noting that this part of the elder Winchester's repertoire had also remained unchanged. He'd been repeating the same words over and over, though no less vehemently or insistently. "Not Sam. That's _not_ Sam. Not Sam. _Not_ Sam."

Whatever that meant.

Jud drew his gaze down Dean's rocking form, lingering on the russet-coloured stains that were splashed liberally down the younger man's soiled shirt. The splatters most likely owed their existence to the nosebleed that had only just stopped gushing somewhere around the time that they'd arrived at the old farmhouse, but Jud had seen what the other men had done to Dean during their brawl. His lip twitched in remembered schadenfreude. Jud knew he could have stepped in earlier, could even have prevented it from happening at all. But the whole thing had just been too damn fun. He hadn't bothered to check what damage the elder Winchester had sustained, but the kid wasn't likely to last much longer anyway, or so it seemed.

Jud narrowed his eyes as his lips snaked into a scaly sneer, and he stepped forward deliberately to scuff at the collage of chipped paint that had held the other man so entranced. He knew he'd been successful when the muttering stopped abruptly, and he glanced up from the ruined pattern to see the mournful frown that creased Dean's suddenly childlike features. Jud snorted in amusement; the younger man looked for all the world like a toddler who'd just been deprived of his favourite toy. The disappointed expression lasted for one brief, vacant moment – during which Jud swore he could see the kid's internal processor struggling to load this new information like a faulty computer – before a low, feral growl suddenly lacerated the air. Jud had been expecting it, and he cocked his fist with an anticipatory grin. He didn't have long to wait before Dean's fury-filled eyes sparked a chain reaction of bared teeth and tensed limbs that seemed to propagate visibly down the length of his body, and was more than ready when the elder Winchester catapulted himself from the bed. It didn't matter that one small step backwards would have easily removed Jud from the spitting, snarling man's reach; the radius of Dean's potential swing already vastly reduced by the injured ribs that nearly bent him double even without the cuffs that secured him to the bed. It didn't matter that the thrashing, blundering hunter probably couldn't have connected with anything other than thin air if he'd tried. It didn't matter that Jud had wanted Dean to be awake when his little brother finally arrived.

Jud waited almost casually, tapping the toe of his boot on the floor and pouting in affected boredom until the last possible second. Dean's wild eyes didn't even flinch as Jud's fist snapped out, and his only sound was a hitched grunt of surprise and pain as his head whipped back from the force of the blow. He collapsed backwards like a dropped rag, lower back slamming into the harsh metal frame of the bed as he failed to make it to the meagre comfort offered by the paltry mattress, and slid to the floor. The cuffs had his right arm stretched and twisted at an awkward, wrenched angle, and his head lolled heavily forward. Dean's other arm had flopped limply across his shuddering chest, an artwork of etched scrapes and blotched bruises. His legs were bent askew, ragged toes poking out from tattered socks. Jud surveyed his handiwork with a critical eye. His technique could have used a little refining, and he'd been slower off the mark than he would have liked, but he'd still KO'd the kid in one strike. _Not bad_, he congratulated himself, satisfied with the finished article. Now at least, he could have some peace and quiet.

Sam Winchester would probably have a bug-eyed, arm-flailing aneurysm when he realised what Jud had done. But then again, the hunter reasoned with a sly grin, it _had_ been self-defence. Jud chuckled as he glanced back at his now unconscious hostage, the raw, angry skin on Dean's jaw deepening and mixing with the twilight palette of blues and purples that were already swollen there. Everything was running much more smoothly than he could ever have hoped for. Acquiring Dean had been too easy, and the younger man's disorientated state had been a bonus he hadn't been expecting, but welcomed with open arms.

Jud hadn't been able to believe his luck when it had happened. He'd been leisurely cruising the Peoria streets, one elbow leaning out the open window of his SUV to catch the evening coolness as he'd headed back to his motel after an artery clogging feast at a bar and grill that had come highly recommended from a hunting buddy over in Nebraska. He hadn't even been searching with any real vigour, too sated and lethargic after his mountainous meal to be paying anything more than cursory attention to the passing scenery, when something unusual had tripped his hunting wire. It had been the irregular motion that had caught at the periphery of his vision, a lurching, ungainly stumble that was altogether too uncoordinated to be the fault of mere intoxication. Besides...there had been a subtle familiarity there that had lodged in his gut and begun leaking up into his throat in an acid reflux of unformed recognition.

Then he'd seen the gleam from an amulet that hung from the man's neck, the spiky hair that stood in dishevelled tufts, the usually strutting, bow-legged gait that had instead been tipping back and forth like a sailor too long from land. The man's hands had been clasped tightly over his ears as his face had grimaced tightly. _Well, I'll be damned!_ Jud had smirked to himself as he'd realised that Dean Winchester, the very person he'd been planning on mounting a search for, had almost literally crossed his path. And _alone_ too. It had to have been some kind of sign, a manna from whoever was watching above. It was a mandate; permission – nay, an _imperative –_ to remove Sam Winchester from the human race before he could turn against it. And the tool he'd been looking for was right in front of his eyes. Looking somewhat the worse for wear, Jud had noted with growing interest. No jacket.

No shoes.

Jud had raised his eyebrows faintly as he'd tracked the younger man's progress down the street, seeing him collide solidly with a passerby and spin off sideways like satellite in orbit, watching as he failed to right himself. Dean's lips had been moving, intently and emphatically, but Jud hadn't been able to make out the words. His brows had merged as he'd taken a long, pensive drag from his cigarette. He hadn't known quite what to make of the scene before him; the elder Winchester wandering alone in agitated disorientation, twitching with the flightiness of a skittish colt...but Jud was prepared to run with it.

Dean had seemed to find his direction again after a few unbalanced steps, his attention overtly snagged by the lazy motion of another man who'd sauntered past. The cogs had been whirring for several long minutes before Jud finally cocked his head in understanding. He'd had to suppress a deep, belly-rumbling guffaw at the thought, settling instead for a soft snort that nevertheless heaved compulsively at his chest muscles. It seemed he now had his reason for why the Winchesters' priority had changed. He'd shaken his head in amused disbelief. Only a moron like Dean would have been stupid enough to let himself get infected...and of course Sammy would drop everything to save his big brother. And hadn't that just made Jud's plan that much sweeter...The younger Winchester would be even more desperate to come to his brother's aid now that Dean's time was imminently running out, and Dean himself would be that much easier to handle. _Like candy from a baby_, Jud had chuckled to himself, continuing to spectate as the younger man had taken a jarring impact against a nearby wall, only to begin clutching at it as though he were clinging to a rock face. It had all been yet another confirmation of the righteousness of Jud's scheme.

His determination proudly pinned to his chest like a badge of honour, Jud had begun crawling along the street at a safe distance behind the clearly bewildered hunter, wanting to take the opportunity that was right in front of him but knowing that there were too many people around. He'd figured that simply leaping from the car, grabbing Dean and dragging him away kicking and screaming might just have attracted the wrong kind of attention. So he'd hung back, following carefully and then rolling to a halt as Dean had paused at a corner. Jud had had no idea what kind of crackpot world the younger man might have been lost in. Going by what he'd found out about the strange, supernatural dementia, Dean might have believed he was five years old. Not that that would have been a stretch.

The elder Winchester had been taut and still, peering round the corner with an alert stealth that suggested he was stalking something. Or someone. Jud had eased the SUV around the corner, careful not to let a clumsy rev or screech of tyres startle the engrossed man. Pulling up at the opposite kerb, Jud had sought out the object of Dean's steady surveillance, realising that it had been the same guy that had hooked the line of the young hunter's attention before. Dean had tracked the other man's movements as far as a loose assembly of hooting, leering thugs standing outside the flickering, red neon doorway of a strip club a couple of blocks down, before beginning to move forwards with determined purpose. Jud hadn't been able to stifle a reflexive hiss as he'd watched Dean step heavily on a lethal shard of glass, more out of instinct than sympathy, and had felt his stomach lurch as the other man had bent to pluck it sickeningly from his heel. After a brief examination, Dean had simply cast it aside like a spent cigarette, his head snapping up as a loud cheer crescendoed from the crowd. Intrigued, Jud had absently run the nail of his index finger along the scratchy whiskers on his chin, feeling its smooth edge pull at the hairs like a razor blade. Dean's features had sharpened, his body turning visibly lithe and graceful as he'd locked his gaze onto the group, onto his quarry. Preparing to strike, Jud had decided as his meandering finger halted in rapt anticipation; his suspicions confirmed as Dean had suddenly launched into a sprint, apparently having entirely forgotten about his newly acquired injury, and had dived forward to tackle his prey.

The resulting commotion had been like watching an unscheduled _royal rumble_, bodies clashing and colliding in a roiling wave of hammering fists and pendulum kicks. Jud had wished for popcorn and a beer as he'd settled back to watch. He'd 'ooohed' and 'aaahed' theatrically at each hit Dean had taken, applauding the swiftness with which the elder Winchester had been taken down. When the young hunter had hit the ground shoulder first, Jud had realised that he'd have to intervene, or he'd very likely lose his prize bait completely. Setting his jaw, he'd quickly driven a block beyond the ruckus, swinging to a grandiose halt by the kerb and leaping swiftly from the car, ignoring the incredulous gapes from the gormless onlookers that stood in clumps outside the surrounding clubs. Briefly, he'd considered grabbing some weaponry, before deciding that his best ammunition was in the pistons of his pumping fists.

Dean's curled form had almost entirely disappeared underneath the scrum of punches and kicks by the time Jud had jogged the length of the block. It hadn't taken much effort to unwrap the layers of brawling men that covered him like Christmas paper, ripping each one away and tearing them to shreds with efficient, practised ease. The men had stared at him as if he was an advancing battle cruiser, shying and cringing away from him as he'd pummelled and pounded. They'd made no move to stop him when he'd bent to retrieve Dean's dazed, battered form. Every bare inch of the young hunter's skin had been mottled and purpled with bruises; swelling cuts and oozing scrapes bulging out from his flesh in a rolling landscape of hills and valleys. It had been abundantly clear that Dean had been utterly out of it, that he'd had no real conception of who had really rescued him. Jud could clearly remember the beseeching 'Sammy?' that had poked its head hopefully out from Dean's split lips, could easily recall the thrill he'd felt at his plan falling into place. The elder Winchester's belief of his little brother's presence had all but ensured that there would be no objection to Jud's chivvying and hustling. And just as he'd predicted, Dean had gone with him willingly, woozily, trustingly. Jud hadn't even bothered to look back at the carnage he'd left behind. He'd gotten what he'd needed.

Dean had slept for the entirety of the journey from Peoria, shuffling slightly in his seat every so often, but easily restrained by the belt that held him strapped there. Small, dozy grunts of pain had punctuated each breath, turning into hitched gasps whenever the car bounced over an uneven patch of asphalt. And Jud had tried to find every pothole on the way. When they'd arrived at the old shack, Dean had roused drowsily at the cessation of the car's engine, and Jud had found himself vaguely wondering if the habit had been ingrained in him at a young age from the Winchester family's nomadic travels. Not that the older man had cared, but it had suited his purpose nicely. He'd had no intention of carrying his hostage, instead poking and prodding the groggy man from the seat of the car and shoving him none too gently across the trampled ground. Dean had been limping and listing lopsidedly as though attempting to drive his body on several flat tyres, and had nearly pitched forward on various dicey occasions. Jud had always stepped in just in time, throwing out a steel buttress of an arm roughly against the younger man's tender chest, not wanting the bother of having to lift Dean from the ground again if he fell. Once inside, it hadn't taken much to get the befuddled man settled on the bed, and Jud had once more rejoiced at the simplicity with which he'd achieved it all.

Jud's head jerked as his straining ears suddenly picked up a distant rumble, shuddering across the plain like a building quake. He glanced at his watch. Forty-five minutes since he'd sent the coordinates. Sammy had been in a hurry. His lips pulled into a grim smile as he stalked to the window, ignoring the incongruously cheerful musical accompaniment of the floorboards as he moved. Before he'd even reached the grime-streaked glass, a blast of light beamed blindingly through the window, forcing him to instinctively shield his eyes. Jud was still seeing blues and greens when the headlights were abruptly extinguished, and it took several comically vigorous blinks before he could make out the Impala's familiar shape outside. Standing to the side of the window, Jud peered out, easily able to discern the younger Winchester's enormous outline in the driver's seat. He was alone.

Jud's smile was carnivorous, the scent of blood teasing at his nostrils. He licked his lips.

It was show time.

o0o0o

Sam cut the Impala's engine and stared out at the condemned shack, trying and failing to fend off a bombardment of unwanted memories as he took in his surroundings; creeping stealthily up to the perimeter of Gordon Walker's Monroe Street _palace_ with a lead weight of fear in his stomach...peering through the gap in the rotten, skewed planks that boarded up the window and seeing Dean bound and gagged under the watchful gaze of Gordon's gun...easing the back door lock open, ears straining for the slightest hint of discovery...

The young hunter took a few seconds to catalogue the structure before him, scanning and tagging every inch with a precision honed from years of watching his father and brother at work. The results of his recon confirmed his initial conclusions; it seemed that psychopathic hunters with a penchant for using his big brother as bait had similarly catastrophic levels of aesthetic impairment. The building looked like a child's drawing, all wobbly lines and scribbled detailing. The sunken roof had more than half of its tiles missing, and the windows were brimming with unshed misery. A fence had been erected around the property – presumably to deter people like Jud Hollis from setting up residence, if the _Danger: Do Not Enter_ signs were anything to go by – but only the rear portion remained standing, the front and sides long having abandoned their posts. The disintegrating walls were badly rendered, and had been painted with an unidentifiable yet desolate colour, which Sam could easily see reflected in the pallor of his own cheeks as he glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. His eyes seemed sunken in their sockets, as if they were attempting to burrow further inward from the harshness of his reality. His lips were dented and chewed, having provided the only available sustenance for his grinding teeth during the dash from Peoria.

He didn't want to think of his brother in that place, in the hands of one of Gordon's buddies; in the hands of a man who apparently bore Dean no small amount of ill will. But the thoughts marched past his defensive walls regardless, the sound of Jud's jeering voice at the head of the battalion, heralding its advance like a foghorn blast. Sam felt his fist tighten where it still gripped the steering wheel. If that son of a bitch had done anything to Dean...He swallowed, feeling the butt of his gun digging into the tender skin at his waist. Its cool metal calmed him as much as it frightened him. He and Dean, they didn't kill people. They just didn't. And Sam wasn't about to start now, even though he really, really wanted to.

"How you holdin' up?" Bobby murmured softly from where he had squished himself down in the back seat. The younger Winchester knew his old friend couldn't have had a comfortable journey, but for once Bobby hadn't grumbled. A quiet seriousness had settled in the car for the duration of the ride, words exchanged for expediency only.

Sam didn't dare remove his gaze from the house, knowing that he was, in all likelihood, being observed. He didn't want Hollis suspecting that he hadn't come alone. "I'm fine," he replied blandly, not believing it with any more conviction than Bobby was likely to, but he knew that neither of them would acknowledge it. They were merely going through the motions. There was no way Sam would be anywhere in the vicinity of _fine_ until he got Dean back and cured. And even then, his destiny ensured that _fine_ would forever be a greener pasture somewhere in the far flung realm of normal peoples' lives.

Bobby had been suitably unimpressed when Sam had declared his intention to give himself up to Jud; the tally of growled _idjits _and incredulous _morons_ notching up an impressive record. More than even _Dean_ had after the then thirteen year-old, in a rare show of disobedience after an unplanned disappearing act by their father, had taken one of their surrogate uncle's old classics for an epic joyride. Sam had grimaced at the memory, easily recalling the sullen expression on his brother's face when Bobby had hauled him back to the salvage yard.

Bobby had levelled all manner of reasoned and logical arguments against his young friend's _crackpot, bass-ackwards_ plan, of which Sam had neatly deflected all but one. And that had been the clincher. "What do you think Jud is gonna _do_ with Dean once he's flicked your lights out, boy? You think he's just gonna kindly drop your brother off at the hospital? That he's gonna send him a care package?" Bobby had scoffed sarcastically, sceptical eyes boring into Sam's suddenly uncertain ones.

"Uh..." The younger Winchester had bitten his lip pensively, the knee-jerk single-mindedness of the _get-Dean-get-Dean-get-Dean_ playing on repeat in his mind beginning to taper off from ear-shattering decibel levels to a more manageable, crashing metal riff as he considered the elder hunter's argument. _Dammit! _He'd thought in frustration as he'd realised that Bobby was right. There was no way that Jud was just going to let Dean go, and even if he _did_, how likely was it that he'd do anything other than leave Sam's big brother to rot in that old shack?

"Yeah," Bobby had agreed dryly. "And even if, by some miracle, Dean survived...and _didn't_ die from all that crazy he's been storin' up...I'm not exactly lookin' forward to gettin' an ass fulla buckshot when he finds out I just let you walk in there. And that would be if I was _lucky_."

Sam had nodded faintly, his eyes on the road in front, blinking stolidly as his mind turned the controls to autopilot. He'd known what Bobby had really been saying. And he'd known the elder hunter had been right once again.

So they'd decided to go together, Bobby hidden in the back seat so that Jud would only see Sam's sasquatch shape in the driver's seat as the Impala approached. Sasquatch. Sam had wrenched his features at that one, not knowing whether to chuckle as he wanted to, or to cry as he needed to. God he missed Dean. The younger Winchester shook his head, forcing himself to focus as he mentally reviewed the 'plan' they'd spent the past forty-five minutes hashing out. They'd agreed that Sam would enter through the front, in order to give Bobby time to sneak around to the back. What Sam would do when he got inside was still a matter of debate, and had been for the duration of their journey. All he knew was that somehow – by whatever means necessary – they were getting Dean out of there.

Another bridge on their horizon was the question of what they were going to do with Jud once they'd rescued Dean. But Sam wasn't thinking too much about that, his big brother's safety overriding any and all other concerns.

Sam had just been reaching for the Impala's door handle with a traitorously shaky hand when his phone began buzzing insistently in his jeans pocket. He paused, awkwardly twisted on the seat as he manoeuvred to reach it, folding and stretching in ways even a contortionist would have struggled to replicate. He ignored Bobby's reflexive huff of amusement as he brought the phone to his ear.

"You planning on sitting out there all night waiting for your prom date, Sammy-boy?" The voice sent tiny jolts of angry electricity sparking down the length of his spine. "Dean's gonna think you've stood him up."

But Sam wasn't in the mood for a light-hearted tete-a-tete with this sadistic bastard, and wasn't about to give his brother's kidnapper the pleasure of taunting him. "I'm coming, all right?" He snapped in response, ending the call before he could say something that he might regret, that might get Dean hurt. He pushed open the door, pausing to glance discreetly back at Bobby, needing to acknowledge the moment somehow. Needing to say goodbye. Just in case. "Bobby...whatever happens to me, just get him out, okay?" He didn't wait for a reply before vaulting from the vehicle, the slam of the Chevy's door echoing hollowly in the surrounding landscape. Once more, he found himself hoping that Dean would pick up the Impala's call, that he'd know his little brother was coming for him.

Sam took a deep breath as he turned to face the building, forcing his clenched fists to loosen. He couldn't afford to go in there as angry and upset as he was; Jud would walk all over him. He closed his eyes, allowing the brief reprieve to fortify his strength, before opening them again with a determined nod. He marched towards the door, the contrast between what he was doing now and what he'd done back in Lafayette not escaping his notice. Before he'd been cautious, furtive; knowing a covert trap had been laid but confident of his ace in the hole. Now all the cards were on the table. A simple transaction, a matter of business. Dean's life being negotiated like some kind of corporate deal.

He shook his head as fury started to rise within him once more. He had to be calm, had to try to effect the bluffing poker face that Dean had always jokingly told him was impossible for such a _freakin' do-gooder_. When the reluctant smile drew his lips wider, he knew the memory had worked to defuse his anger to a level that wouldn't send steam screeching from his ears. He could do this. Dean needed him to do this.

As Sam neared the front door, he began immediately assessing his surroundings. The windows gave him nothing but swirling, deepening darkness. The noiselessness of the place dropped no auditory clues as to what awaited him within. The door was ajar by a chink, offering little more than the knowledge that he was stepping into the unknown. He straightened his lips grimly, suddenly more than aware of the similarities to Lafayette too. Then, as he was now, he'd knowingly and willingly walked towards death, not caring if it took him as long as he had the chance to save his brother. He paused in the doorway, shuffling his feet nervously as he tried to decide whether to burst through or to simply edge his way in. He mentally weighed the pros and cons, frowning as the scales refused to settle. One wrong move might tip the balance towards certain death, for him _and_ Dean.

"Oh for the love of god, Sammy. You don't get your ass in here, I'm gonna start breaking some bones! Or at least, I'm going to start breaking some _more_!"

Without thinking, without even a glimmer of conscious awareness, Sam was through the door and stumbling to a halt as his flighty eyes landed instantly on his brother. To where he was slumped like a discarded rag doll against a rickety, rusted bed; his right arm, slashed and covered in a thundery storm cloud of angry bruises, held aloft and at an obscene angle by cuffs that gouged cruelly at the wrist. Bloody trails wept from the wound, leaving spidery tear tracks that painted the skin a rusty crimson. Dean's head was tipped forward, denying Sam a glimpse of his face, his chin buffeted unevenly from side to side as his chest shuddered and gasped. Sam felt his heart explode into a pulpy mess against his ribcage as he caught sight of the dried blood on Dean's shirt, as his pricked ears registered the low, soft whimper of pain that accompanied each breath. His brother was clearly unconscious. And Sam knew Dean hadn't been that way when Jud had gotten his hands on him. Jud had hurt him.

Jud had done this.

Sam had seen all he'd needed to of his brother's condition from one brief, but thorough, head-to-toe sweep. He choked on a breath, horrified at the sight. One blink later and his gun was in his hand and aimed squarely for the kill-shot between Jud's straw coloured brows. The move was pure fear...pure primal instinct. And a mistake.

In his desperation to check over his brother, he'd missed Jud's proximity to Dean on the bed. At the sight of Sam's weapon, Jud had moved more quickly than the younger Winchester had expected; his considerable bulk a devious decoy to the swiftness of his motion. Before Sam could take so much as another blink, Jud had threaded his arms through and under Dean's armpits and was hauling him upwards onto the bed. Dean's free arm flapped like a broken wing as Jud harshly dumped the elder Winchester down on the emaciated mattress. Sam felt all organ function cease as the motion jarred his brother's injured body, felt his mouth go dry as Dean let out an unconscious moan of pain. It wasn't enough to waken him however; Sam's insensible brother as limp and pliant as ever as Jud pulled him close. And pressed a serrated blade underneath his lolling chin.

"Told you to come unarmed, Sammy," Jud cooed in a high, sing-song voice, turning frigid eyes on Sam, his irises an Arctic grey as he casually drew the knife across the fragile skin at Dean's neck; the jagged metal stitching a little row of red nicks that dribbled and seeped at its passage.

"And I told _you_ I'd kill you if you laid a finger on him," Sam's nostrils flared as he clenched his teeth, the tendons on his own neck thickening and tautening like elevator cables as he stood by, impotently watching Jud torture his brother. The knife wasn't pressing nearly hard enough to cause serious damage, but the instinctive way that Dean had tensed his body told Sam that it was pressing more than hard enough to hurt. The younger Winchester adjusted his grip on his gun, his aim never wavering even as his palms grew slick with nervous sweat. Jud's beefy arm around Dean's throat, the relaxed, leisurely way he was hurting Sam's big brother, the slices and bruises marking Dean's skin in a mosaic of mistreatment, the fact that Jud only needed one arm to hold the unconscious man upright...all of them were conspiring to overthrow Sam's good intentions in a violent, murderous coup.

If Jud had been ruffled by the flashing fury in Sam's eyes, he hid it well. The older man cocked his head to the side in a show of affected thoughtfulness, all the while beginning to retrace the knife's path. Then he smiled, mustard-yellow teeth winking nauseatingly in the moonlight. "Well, if we're going to play that game...I told you I might need to defend myself."

Sam hissed before he could stop himself, the memory of the man's silky smooth words taunting him over the phone coming too easily to mind: _you know, if he were to get loose somehow...go on the offensive...I'd have to defend myself_. It was abundantly clear that Dean hadn't been in any fit state to free himself, meaning that Jud had beaten him anyway. The thought of his defenceless brother acting as a tethered punch bag to this perverted psychopath was more than he could handle, and all he could think about was getting Dean out of there. The predatory image of Jud bearing down on his brother had sent all of his half-formed plans and strategic thoughts scattering. "Stop it, right _now_,you sonofabitch!" He ground out, stomach nosediving as fresh blood streamed from the deepening wound at Dean's neck. "Let him go, Jud. You have me. I'm here."

The older man halted the blade in its tracks as he let out a soft, wheezy snort, slowly shaking his head as if Sam was a small child who had just insisted that the sky was green, his voice pedantic and accentuated as he explained with feigned patience. "Uh, uh, uh...that's not how it works Sammy. You die, and _then_ I let him go."

Sam swallowed, eyes dancing from side to side as he pretended to consider Jud's ultimatum. "How do I know you won't just kill him anyway?" Behind the façade, his mind was frantically calculating and plotting. How the hell was he going to get them out of this?

Jud's features hardened, the ugly looking scar that arced above his brow glinting and shining in the shaft of moonlight like chipped glass. His voice was sharp and cold. "Well, let's put it this way. I'll kill him _right now_ unless you drop that weapon."

Sam's breath caught, but he stifled his instinctive gasp, levelling Jud with a scowl that would have charted off the Richter scale. "Or I could just shoot you," his voice felt gravelly, as if a rockslide of emotion had sealed his windpipe.

But Jud merely shook his head again, a confident, self-assured smile tugging at the cracked skin around his lips."You let Gordon walk. You're not going to kill me."

Sam's eyes fluttered closed for the briefest of seconds, a flicker of regret igniting at the memory. Maybe he ought to have just let Dean... "I wouldn't be so sure," he retorted, feeling his finger twitch against the trigger.

Jud let his eyes connect in a glancing blow with Sam's as he looked the younger man up and down appraisingly, before turning his attention to Dean. He leered over the elder Winchester's sagging form, the tips of Dean's spiky head tickling at the bottom of his chin. Sam felt his skin crawl. "I wonder how much more blood your brother can stand to lose tonight. I gotta tell you, those guys knew what they were doing when they took him down. I saw it all. I could have stepped in, but I figured, hey, it makes my job a whole lot easier."

Sam felt his aim wobble for the first time, too affected by the image of his brother being set upon by that motley gang of thugs while Jud cheerfully watched on. The older man easily caught the slip, and his grin widened. "Now be a good boy, and toss me that gun. Right there, beside me on the bed"

The younger Winchester stiffened as Jud pressed the knife against Dean's already torn skin, but as his finger tightened further against the trigger, his keen gaze picked up the tiniest ripple across Dean's eyelids. Distracted, he lost any opportunity he might have had, but there was something – some unidentified spark of understanding – at the back of his mind, and his instinct shifted. Nodding in acquiescence at Jud, he lowered his weapon and carefully chucked it towards the bed, where it scudded softly across the surface of the mattress and came to rest at Jud's hip. A perfect throw. He just hoped he wasn't wrong.

"Atta boy!" Jud taunted with an easy laugh, confidence oozing from every pore as he straightened behind Dean, pushing the younger man's weight further forward onto his knife-tipped arm as he reached his free hand for Sam's relinquished gun. His fingers closed around the butt, and he swung it gracefully up to point back at the disarmed man. The weapon was rigid in his grip as he speared the younger Winchester with a disgusted, snide glare. "You're a freak of nature, Sammy. An_ abomination_," he spat, jostling Dean slightly in his enthusiasm. He eyed Sam once more, but it was with the wrinkled nose and narrowed eyes of one who had just smelled something deeply malodorous. "You should never have been allowed to exist. I'll be doing the world a favour by putting you down."

Jud curled his finger around the trigger, pinning Sam to the spot with a final, self-righteous stare. "One day, you'd have ended up a monster. It's your destiny."

Sam didn't even have to time to blink.

o0o0o

_Yeah, I know, another nasty cliffhanger, but I couldn't resist this one! Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts..._


	14. How to Save a Life

Thanks everyone for all your awesome reviews for the last chapter and to all who have favourited and alerted.

My good pal Sharlot has been so generous with her time and encouragement during the writing of this story and I am truly indebted to her for all of her hard beta work. I want to say an extra thanks to her too for not letting me scrimp on the Dean POV in this chapter! :)

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 14 – How to Save a Life**

The sound of the shot seemed to shake the whole world.

The corroded walls appeared to billow and flap like a tent in high wind, the ground shuddered, the air boomed with a thundery rumble that reverberated to and fro across the room, and a flurry of splintery, wooden flakes floated softly down from the ceiling. Where Jud's deflected aim had sent the bullet. There was a jagged hole where the round had blasted its way through, the rafters snapped and bent. A cool breeze filtered down from the air outside, the bullet having torn straight through the flimsy, untiled roof and out into the night sky.

A heavy silence blanketed the room for several stunned seconds.

Sam remained rooted to the spot, certain that he was alive, but not quite sure how he'd managed it. His heart hadn't yet received the memo and was still lying prostrate on the floor of his ribcage. He closed his jaw with an abrupt snap as he brought himself back to awareness from the numbing shock of expected oblivion, the sound clicking loudly in the hushed stillness. He hadn't even had time to blink, no time to cringe, to duck, to even take a breath when the gun had fired. He'd stared down the barrel of the weapon, his mind zooming in on the hammer as it drew back, picturing the small metal round as it hurtled towards him.

He hadn't even had time to blink.

If he had, he'd have missed the moment that Dean had suddenly reared backwards, the crown of his head colliding brutally with Jud's stubbly chin with a dull clunk. Sam had noted the signs of Dean's growing awareness as Jud had been taunting him, and in desperation, he'd realised that his brother had been his only hope. It had been a gamble; Dean in his bewildered state far from being the ally in battle that he'd always been. But Sam had had faith, a belief that no matter how far gone his brother's mind might have been, Dean would always look out for him. There had been a split second when he'd feared he'd made a fatal miscalculation, that Dean might have been merely moving from unconscious insensibility to wakeful disorientation. But he'd felt it, their bond, stretching the distance between them with an almost physical pull. And Dean hadn't let him down.

Though Sam had expected some sort of intervention, he'd still felt his heart drop to the ground in a dead faint at the sight of his brother's impulsive movement, Dean's eyes – saucer-wide and furious – easily discernible in the dimness like cornered wildcat. "You do that to my brother, I'll _kill_ you!" Dean had snarled, his mouth a ferocious slash across his face. Sam had stared, transfixed as Jud's head had snapped backwards at the impact, a guttural grunt of surprised pain exhaling from the older man's abruptly deflated lungs. The arm that had wielded the weapon with such unflinching aim had been flung wildly off course, just as his finger had squeezed the trigger. The jerking recoil had unbalanced the older man still further, and he'd ended up sprawled flat on his back against the mattress, goggle-eyed and dazed.

Sam shook his head fleetingly, his heart beginning to crawl to its feet as sensation returned to the young hunter's limbs with the roar of rushing rapids. Jud's incapacitation was a reprieve of precious few seconds, and Sam wasn't about to waste any more time. He stole a glance at Dean, to where his brother had shied away from the gunshot. The elder Winchester had shuffled up close to the headboard he was cuffed to, both hands latticed across the back of his skull and blocking any inspection Sam might have wanted to make of his features. Dean was rocking slightly back and forth, knees huddled against his chest. The newly visible tears on his clothing offered an agonising insight into yet more bruises that Sam hadn't been privy to earlier, and the younger Winchester felt his own body throb in concern and sympathy. There was a soft, keening murmur that seemed to be emanating from somewhere in the region of where Dean's chin was crammed against his chest, the words slurred and muddled to ears that were still recovering from the cacophony of the gunshot blast. As his brain adjusted its frequency, Sam finally made out the gist of his brother's lament. "No, Sammy, no. Sammy, no. No. Sammy, I'm sorry. Sorry, Sammy, I'm sorry."

_Oh Dean!_ Sam couldn't prevent a heavy shroud of grief from choking his heart as he realised that his brother thought he was dead. He took a half step towards him, instinctively seeking to soothe Dean, to reassure him that his little brother was alive and well. Thanks to _him_. But the younger Winchester stopped himself abruptly, knowing he had a job to do. It took every fibre of Sam's self-control not to go to his brother there and then, but the training he'd so stupidly let slide just minutes earlier had to be his first priority; neutralising the threat. He'd already placed Dean in more danger by faltering, by allowing himself to be sidetracked by his brother's condition. By allowing Jud to get the upper hand. But there would be time to beat himself up for that later, once Dean was safe.

He dived for the bed just as Jud was beginning to regain awareness, clambering clumsily onto the mattress in his haste to reach for the gun, which was still loosely clasped in the older man's stubby fist. Jud's chest looked impossibly large, lolling on the bed like a beached whale. Sam gulped nervously as the man's juggernaut frame slowly stirred. He saw Jud's scratchy brows twitch spasmodically just as he felt his own fingers close around the smooth metal, and would most likely have been able to wrestle it away quite easily before Jud recovered his strength, had Dean not chosen that precise moment to let out a deafening, panicked bellow.

"SAM!"

Sam's head jerked up involuntarily, eyes intuitively seeking out Dean's as the molten terror in his brother's howl instinctively stopped him in his tracks. But his big brother's head was twisting this way and that, agitated and alarmed, his eyes rolling and unfocussed. He was yanking at his cuffs so violently that the whole bed frame quaked and trembled.

The distraction would cost Sam dearly.

Jud's knee exploded upwards like a jackhammer, slamming solidly into Sam's groin with enough force to throw him somersaulting off the bed. His shoulder hit the crooked floorboards with a blunt crack, the rest of him following in a snowball of flailing limbs. The warped wood groaned wheezily underneath him as he felt his body go slack.

It was several moments before Sam could see anything other than blinding white light, before he could hear anything other than a high-pitched buzzing in his ears, before he could feel anything other than pounding, pulsing agony. His senses were going haywire in a power-surge of pain, dials and meters swinging from one extreme to another, sparks flying from malfunctioning machines. He didn't know how long he lay there, it might have been seconds...or days, the pain whisking him away from reality to a destination of timeless torture. When his ears finally stopped ringing, he became aware of heavy, groaning pants shredding the air around him. Eventually reconnecting with the world, with body and brain, he realised that the wounded-buffalo noises were coming from his own lips. Jesus. That had been one _hell_ of an acid trip. He barely had time to register his return to reality before his eyes suddenly sharpened in focus, picking up a twirling, spinning object in the periphery of his vision. It was his gun, whirling madly on the spot several feet away from Sam's sprawled form, where it had clearly been tossed during his tussle with Jud.

He lifted himself on trembling arms – the pain between his legs pulling him downwards like a lead weight – not getting further than the mere thought of reaching the gun before he saw Jud's hulking figure already closing in on it. _Dammit!_ He clenched his fists, choking back a groan as he launched to his feet, pure, primitive determination to live driving him forward, until his shoulders were crashing into the unprotected flesh at Jud's waist. The tackle took them both tumbling to the ground with a thud that robbed them both of air and voice, Sam's shoulder protesting vociferously at this new abuse after ploughing into what felt like a brick wall. The younger Winchester recovered first, pushing his opponent roughly onto his back and grinning maliciously as he saw Jud's head rebound violently against the floor. The older man had time to do little more than assemble a house-of-cards sneer before Sam was cocking his fist, imbuing it with all the hatred, all the fury, all the protective concern he'd felt for Dean when he'd seen his brother's condition, and ramming it savagely into Jud's gut.

Was there any part of this man's body that wasn't friggin' solid?

"Sam?" The younger Winchester had been pulling back for another strike, his jarred knuckles trumpeting like a brass band, when he heard Bobby's gruff call. _'Bout time!_ He muttered to himself as he caught Jud across the chin this time, the older man's head snapping roughly to the side from the blow, his lip ruptured and spurting like squashed fruit.

Sam chanced a peek at his old friend out of the corner of his eye, letting out a small huff of frustration as he saw the hesitancy in Bobby's shifting feet. The veteran hunter flicked his gaze from Dean to Sam, clearly unsure as to who needed his assistance more. "I've got it under control Bobby, just get Dean!" The younger Winchester called over his shoulder, catching his breath as Jud pushed viciously at him, shoving him to the side. He allowed his momentum to roll him over, taking that brief moment to douse the fire of agony that had risen once more between his legs, and then he was springing agilely to his feet and running at Gordon's friend once more. But Jud was ready for him this time, blocking his swinging paw and jabbing at Sam's sternum with an iron fist.

"Not bad, Sammy! I'll give you that," A film of blood sprayed across Sam's bulging eyes from Jud's split lip as he heaved, the hit he'd taken to his midriff still restricting his air flow, but he smirked as Sam coughed harshly, bent nearly double from the older man's blow. His smile was short-lived however, as the younger Winchester abandoned his _mostly_ feigned injury and used his position to grapple Jud to the floor once more. Sam was ready for the jarring impact this time, allowing it to jolt him without destroying his balance. His eyes scoured the uneven surface of the floor frantically for the dropped gun, realising when he failed to locate it that he'd have to improvise.

"You son of a bitch!" Sam growled, scrambling hastily to his feet and pinning Jud's neck to the floor with the sole of his boot, beginning to press downwards on the older man's frantically bobbling Adam's apple with imperious vindictiveness. He felt it fluttering beneath his foot like a buzzing insect. "I warned you..." Sam panted thickly, his chest still pulsing out blaring klaxons of pain from Jud's earlier hit. "I told you...You hurt him, now I'm hurting _you_."

Jud could only wheeze in response – his eyes beginning to expand outwards like balloons as Sam gradually restricted his air – somehow still managing to fill the weak rasp with a litany of unvoiced expletives. The younger Winchester merely narrowed his eyes in response, ensuring that the downed man met his gaze and could feel every hurled dagger. This sadistic son of a bitch, this man who'd had the gall to question _Sam's _humanity, who'd abducted his big brother to use as bait. Who'd tortured him to get at Sam...It was too much. He pressed down harder – ignoring the small voice at the back of his mind that was loudly and passionately proclaiming that they didn't _kill_ humans – enjoying the gagging fear that gurgled from Jud's distorted lips.

He might have ended it there and then, had a muffled commotion somewhere in the background not jolted him back into full awareness.

"Dean! _Dean_!" Bobby was pleading in an urgent voice, his tone sounding strained and desperate. "It's okay, son. You don't wanna be stickin' that nowhere. Give it here. It's _me_! It's Bobby." And out of breath. Immediately sensing that his friend was struggling to contain a clearly irascible – and possibly dangerous – Dean, and instantly forgetting about how close he'd come to murder, Sam twisted around, his balance shifting as he simultaneously attempted to maintain his hold on Jud. Bobby had managed to free Dean, that much the younger Winchester could tell, but the two men appeared to be facing off against each other from across the expanse of the mattress. Bobby was standing in a loose, wide stance, looking as if it took a near Herculean effort of will to maintain as he tried to appear non-threatening. Dean on the other hand, was hunched and taut, every muscle wired tighter than a guitar string. The wound on his neck was still sluggishly trickling, jagged and uneven, wrapping around him like a line of barbed wire. He wavered from side to side, lips spasming manically in a silent mutter. Winces seemed to scuttle across his features from different angles and directions like an army of scurrying insects. His gaze was locked on Bobby, irises shifting between ferocity and fear as they bopped and writhed, an iridescent spectrum of emotions seeming to catch the moonlight at each movement.

But what drew Sam's panicked eye was the knife Dean fiercely held in one vibrating fist. The same serrated blade that had been used to mutilate his big brother's neck by the man pinioned beneath his toes. Blood still clung to its jagged edge, shiny and not yet dried. Dean's blood. Dripping from the blade. Dripping from his neck.

They had to get the knife away from him.

"Dean!" Sam barked without thinking, heart bungeeing around in his ribcage as a film reel of grisly outcomes jerked and stuttered before his eyes. For the briefest of seconds, they connected, sparks flying as their almost telepathic link reignited into flame. And Sam forgot everything else, the complete sincerity and sentience in Dean's eyes utterly flooring him. All that he'd lost over the past few days, all that he'd missed seemed to come flooding back; rushing over him, under him, through him. He felt whole again, complete in a way he hadn't realised he'd been without until he'd finally been sealed back together.

"Sammy?" Dean murmured softly, the entreaty wistful and broken, hope brightening his eyes before his features caved in with a groan of agony. The arm holding the knife dropped slightly as the elder Winchester took one wobbling step towards his little brother.

"Hey," Sam managed, emotions turning his tongue limp and uncooperative in his mouth. The smile that broke across his face was a more than eloquent substitute however, and when he saw the answering upturn in Dean's lips he let out an awestruck sigh. His brother was back. He didn't even notice the gradual lessening in pressure of his boot, too entranced by the sight of Dean...of _Dean_ Dean. His big brother was looking at Sam like he was really present in the room, like he was really _seeing_ his little brother.

When Sam's legs disappeared from underneath him, he knew he'd made yet another disastrous error.

The younger Winchester hit the ground with a thud that rattled his bones and drove the air from his lungs. His brain seemed to sag like a saturated sponge, his ears numb and muffled as though they had been stuffed with cotton wool. Sam thought he might have heard his brother's yell somewhere in the distance, but as he rolled over onto his back and turned his head towards his best guess of Dean's location, the young hunter found himself staring straight up at the barrel of his own gun. His pupils followed the weapon's downward motion, beginning to cross as it arrogantly came to rest on the tip of his nose. Jud's heavy, putrid breath seemed to gather around him like a suffocating fog as the older man's leering face peered close. The entire reversal in fortune had taken less than two seconds.

There was a scraping, creaking scuffle happening somewhere beyond the tips of his toes, but Sam could focus on nothing else but the slow click of the depressing trigger as Jud leered triumphantly, cold-blooded murder glinting in the depths of his dark eyes. "Nice try, Sammy."

This time Sam _did_ have time to blink.

He opened his eyes just in time to see Jud's smile falter, to see the paralysing confusion in his captor's gaze. He heard the guttering gasp before he truly realised what had happened, could almost feel the rattling and popping in the other man's lungs as Jud frantically sought to drag in a precious breath. One hurked cough was all it took; a pulpy, viscous mess of blood and phlegm splattering down onto Sam's nose and cheeks, warm, lumpy and wet as it slid down his chin. Jud's expression froze, rigid; as if each plane and curve was carved delicately in ice, and he slumped forwards. On top of Sam.

Dead.

"Guh!" Sam grunted involuntarily as he felt the full weight of Jud's body begin to squash him, the pressure seeming to come at him from all sides, crushing him as if he were a condemned vehicle. The younger Winchester felt his ribs crinkle and contort like twisted metal as the man's matted locks fell forward to curtain his face, obscuring his vision with an impenetrable screen of blond. "Ugh!" He groaned again, attempting to manoeuvre lethargic, uncooperative limbs underneath Jud's midriff to lever the man's body up and off him. But they kept sliding uselessly back to his side as his lungs struggled to inflate, weakening and slackening as his muscles downed tools and left the building. Melting spots of black were splodging the jaundiced yellow around him, slowly dissolving and evaporating his vision.

"Sam!" There was a voice now, somewhere above him, peaty and smoky like an aged malt. _Bobby_, Sam guessed vaguely, his thoughts beginning to divide and shuffle mitotically. "Sam!" There was a deep, throaty growl of exertion and then the younger Winchester began to feel the smothering compression ease ever so slightly. "Little...help?" Bobby grouched hoarsely, exhaling a gravelly breath as he heaved. Exalting in the feeling of fresh air entering his lungs, Sam finally managed to coax his muscles into action, positioning his hands underneath Jud's barrel chest and pushing upwards. It was a weak effort, but more than enough to allow Bobby to roll Jud's body to the side.

The younger man desperately sucked in a gallon of air as if he'd just surfaced from forty fathoms deep, the oxygen flowing refreshingly down his parched throat to quench the burning thirst in his lungs. Sam shakily panted out a feeble "thanks," raising a hand to disgustedly wipe at the sticky residue on his chin. He sat up, forcing his still recovering eyes to study the prone figure of the man who had tried to kill him. Who had hurt Dean. Jud's head was twisted awkwardly, facing away from him, and mercifully sparing Sam another eyeful of his death mask. The younger Winchester allowed his eyes to roam along the length of Jud's frame, stopping short when he saw the knife's hilt sticking grotesquely upwards from where it had pierced the man's heart from behind. The curved wood jutted out at a skewed angle, a victory flag, a statement of claim.

Dumbfounded, Sam looked from the blade to Bobby, who was staring at him with warm concern. The older man was sporting another impressive bruise on his chin, a charcoal smudge that nevertheless stood out in the gloom. _Dean_, Sam could only guess, but he couldn't comprehend why, or how, or when at that point. His thoughts were still reassembling themselves, marshalling the fit and tending to the wounded. The younger Winchester nodded deliberately at Jud before spearing Bobby with a sharp look. At the implicit question scrawled in Sam's raised eyebrows, he shook his head, jerking the bill of his cap instead to a huddled figure in one of the room's far corners.

"Dean?" Sam demanded, needing confirmation before he could assimilate what his old friend was really saying.

"Yeah," Bobby affirmed softly, lifting his cap to run a tired hand through his hair.

"Jesus," Sam murmured, dazed.

"Yeah."

o0o0o

"_One day, you'd have ended up a monster. It's your destiny."_

The words boomeranged back and forth through a swirling, gyrating, roiling, tumbling vortex of crashing, clattering pain; agony that seismically radiated out from points on his body that he couldn't fully distinguish, and a searing, scorching fire that burned him from within. That brought true tears to his eyes, spilling blazing trails down his cheeks like rivers of lava no matter how hard he crushed his palms to his skull in an attempt to stave them off. He was hunched as tightly as he could make himself, knees squeezed hard against his middle despite the curiously unpleasant, crunching sensation that ground and gnawed at his insides every time he breathed.

Smoke funnelled and furled around him, clogging his lungs and burning his throat. There was something thick and cottony in his mouth, muffling his voice as he tried to sob out his devastation. Chips and chunks of wood were hailing down on him, tearing and scraping at him as he tried to protect himself. Like he hadn't protected Sammy.

"_Sam's not gonna fall for a freakin' tripwire."_

Tripwire. Sam hadn't fallen for one tripwire. He'd fallen for the second one. Dean pushed his palms harder, wishing he could disintegrate his skull into dust. He was alone. The one thing he had always truly feared. Sammy was gone. Sammy had _died_. Died. Sammy had died. Dean felt his mental cogs grind to a halt, the unbearable realisation blocking and jamming their motion. Sammy...Sammy had died. He'd died.

Sam was dead. And it was all his fault. He couldn't even comprehend the extent of what had just happened. The explosion had shaken the whole world. Had destroyed Dean's.

"No, Sammy, no. Sammy, no. No. Sammy, I'm sorry. Sorry, Sammy, I'm sorry." He didn't know if the words had made it past his gag, or if they were just circling like vultures inside his head, picking over the carcass of his slain existence for scraps of lingering denial. He couldn't sit still, couldn't wait idly by while the storm raged within. The motion of rocking back and forward that he opted for became soothing somehow, the repetitive movement easing the pain until he could tolerate it without writhing. He settled into a gentle rhythm, catching his breath every so often as the grating sensation in his middle sparked and growled like a hot-wired engine. There was blankness for a merciful few moments as he focussed on the swaying of his body, and then his mind began to drift, a light breeze sending it airborne, floating and dancing in the ether around him like a stray feather. Calmed, he followed its motion with mild interest, watching to see where it would land. It tickled at memories, brushed past images, twirled daintily away from blustery emotions.

Cocooned in concentrated distraction, he absently began to lift one hand away from his head to explore the unusually textured surface he was leaning against, frowning in consternation when the limb refused to budge. A ring of pain chased itself around the appendage he'd tried to move, cruelly shooting down his gliding mind like a hunter aiming for game. Game. His heart snagged on the word, unravelling at dizzying speed as his mind landed with a quaking thud, a deafening explosion bursting out around him at the impact. _Your brother's fair game_. He jolted as his consciousness flickered feebly like a storm generator. _He's your brother, you love the guy...This has gotta hurt like hell for you_..._Sorry Dean_.

Then he remembered again.

"SAM!" The howl was of the purest loss, torn from somewhere deep and primal. Somewhere thought, and logic, and conscious awareness had never truly plumbed. It tore something vital from him; life, hope. Love.

And then the horror took control of his body, the sensation too gripping, too uncontrollable and all consuming as it swamped him from top to toe. He knew nothing but the soul-deep abyss of grief and loss, too much for his skull alone to contain as he began thrashing his limbs wildly, swinging his head from side to side as though he could shake the pain away. There was nothing else he could do. And gradually lights began to switch off, chambers and corridors in his mind plunging into darkness, a domino effect spreading from one wing to another. Sheets were placed over furniture, valuables were removed, shutters were closed. The pain was locked up in the basement as a protective inertia took hold, the only lingering brightness remaining towards the front of the structure; the view from the street one of superficial residence. The lights were on...but no one was home.

He knew nothing until a sound behind him disturbed his stupor.

The noise rebounded off his eardrum, a harsh, creaky arpeggio that was somehow passively jarring. His eyes were fixed forward, staring without seeing. He detected no movement in front of him, darkness had numbed his pupils to the luxury of detail, and everything was fuzzy and pixelated.

_Brrmmmmph!_ The vibration was thick and shaggy as it skimmed past his ears. It was familiar, in a completely unfamiliar way, but just curious enough to lift him from catatonia. His brow spasmed and furrowed, that one small movement sending a chain reaction of skittering motion down the length of his body. Wakening him. "Dean!" He heard it now, clear and distinct. What did–What was–_Who_ was–Wait. His lost, roaming thoughts began retracing their steps back to the beaten track. Dean was him_. He_ was Dean.

He was Dean.

His eyes unfocussed, he lowered his head, pondering this new information. When he looked up, an enormous mass of black had appeared in front of him, and he recoiled, catching his wrist roughly on whatever was encircling it. He let out a small, hitched gasp of fear and pain as the shape moved closer. "Dean! Take it easy, boy. It's okay. It's Bobby." The words were slow, painstaking and hushed. But the elder Winchester was far from appeased, and he shrank away from the shadowy figure as it began to stretch gingerly towards him.

When the restriction dropped away from his wrist, it took Dean several long seconds to realise that he was free, the sonic boom of released pain firing down the nerves on his arm and detonating in his brain. When the raining debris finally cleared from his mind, the elder Winchester saw the dark shape move towards him again. Widening his eyes in terror, he let fly with a swinging fist, feeling the vibration from the smacking impact reverberate up the length of his arm. He heard a muffled grunt, rippling jaggedly with an emotion he could identify only too easily: anger. Dean scrabbled backwards away from the threat with pained stiffness, across the springy surface of whatever he'd been resting on, patting palms hitting against and closing upon something sharp and cold as he felt his way. Reaching the edge of the creaking, shifting layer beneath him, he turned to look behind him. Beyond the rim of his current position was a black hole of nothingness that seemed to yawn downwards into depthless oblivion. Air left him in a stunned exhale that scraped painfully at his middle as his eyes widened in disbelief. There was nothing...nothing beyond the precipice he now sat on. What the...?

The elder Winchester turned his head frantically back in the direction he'd just travelled, still seeing the bulbous shape of the figure that had come after him. He paused, uncertain. He could either face the threat that still scared the hell out of him, or let himself fall into the unknown. The young hunter gulped, feeling the motion roll down his throat like a wave. Awesome. Dean returned his gaze to the nothingness before him, brows knitting as he became aware of strange sounds that were coming from somewhere beyond him; thumps and bumps and gurgles and rumbles.

And then words too, he could suddenly discern.

"You hurt him, now I'm hurting _you._" Dean moved forward on pure instinct, something in the sound, something in the tone tugging at him in a way he couldn't begin to understand. All kinds of emotions were colliding and popping within him like volatile chemicals, creating feelings and urges and senses that he couldn't piece together or make meaning from. The elder Winchester had no words for them, no explanation for why the sound had affected him so. He just knew that it had made him move, and move fast. The words were so compelling, so demanding that he'd have determinedly followed them all the way to their source had the feeling of his feet touching solid ground not reminded him that he'd been on the verge of free-falling into an abyss. The abruptness of his landing shocked him into immobility for a brief moment as he realised that he was in fact standing upright, and not plummeting.

Suddenly remembering the object in his hand, Dean began studying it intently, lifting it closer to his face. Even in the dimness it seemed to shine, there was a fascinating silveriness to it that instantly attracted his attention. The elder Winchester wiggled it back and forth, eyes brightening as the little twinkle of light at its tip winked gleefully back at him. But something darker clung to its jagged edge, something that was sticky to the touch as he lifted an intrepid finger to explore it. The tackiness coated the tip of his digit, the smell sickly and unpleasant as he examined it with his nose.

"Dean!" He whirled around, jolting as he abruptly recalled the threat he'd thought he'd managed to escape from, and he resolutely raised the object in front of him without quite knowing why.

"_Dean!_" His attacker called again, but more thinly this time, stretched and breakable. "It's okay, son. You don't wanna be stickin' that nowhere. Give it here. It's _me_! It's Bobby."

The elder Winchester felt anger sweep through his body as fear's dam broke, and he grimaced, tensing up his muscles and clenching his fist around the serrated object it held. He was going to rip that thing _limb from limb_. But what if it got to him first? What if it killed him? Fear threw up an enormous blockade, freezing him on the spot. God, he had to get out of here, he had to run. The barrier held for a few hushed seconds before rage broke through once more. Dammit, that thing had to _pay_, and he was going to friggin' _annihilate_ it–

"Dean!" That strangely familiar voice again. It cut clean across Dean's consciousness, halting his thoughts in their circular tracks. He jerked his eyes reflexively in the direction of the call. And then his world seemed to shift, seemed to realign. And he saw his brother. His heart altered its rhythm, his brain waves began pulsating to a different frequency. To Sam's. To the almost psychic synchronicity they shared. There he was, Dean's little brother, staring at him as if he'd just risen from the dead, as if he was the most awe inspiring sight that could ever be seen. The elder Winchester met his gaze head on, returning the sentiment with every ounce of strength he had. Sam was alive. He was _alive_! Gordon hadn't killed him, hadn't blown him apart, hadn't taken him away from his big brother. Dean felt a great surge of relief engulf him.

"Sammy?" He murmured tentatively, scarcely daring to believe that his little brother was really there, in front of him. He made to take a step towards the younger man, aiming for an embrace that would reassure him of the younger man's solidity, but he faltered as the bones ground together across his midriff. Broken ribs. Terrific. He scrunched his features as he rode out the wave of pain, calming slightly at the sound of his brother's voice.

"Hey." Sam's smile was brimming with unvoiced emotion, his soft greeting wobbling under the heavy burden of the things he seemed to want to say but couldn't. It didn't matter. Dean didn't need the words to translate the smile, they wouldn't have done it justice anyway. He felt his own lips curve upwards in response, his own unspoken affection beaming across the room in that telepathic way that had always communicated more than words ever had.

But both smiles were short-lived.

Belatedly Dean realised that Sam had been holding someone down with the sole of his boot. Someone the elder Winchester instantly recognised. It was Gordon! Gordon who had tried to kill Sam, and who had failed. But who was apparently determined to try again. "Sam!" Too late, he yelled out a warning. In slow motion Dean watched it; Sam's legs being swept out from underneath him, the ringing thud as his brother hit the floor, the swiftness with which Gordon had him pinned with a gun.

Gordon was going to murder Sam, right before his eyes.

_No!_ Dean ignored the pain that spiked at every step, ignored the terror that had frozen the blood in his veins, ignored Bobby's sudden presence at his side. Dismissively, he shoved the elder hunter aside and locked in on his target. The floorboards were protesting stridently at each movement, but all Dean could see was Gordon's leering figure as he pressed the gun triumphantly against Sam's nose. The younger Winchester was looking up at his killer with raw fear pooling in his eyes, his pupils cockeyed as they focussed on the weapon.

Incensed, Dean was all big brother as he bore down on his little brother's tormentor, the cocky "Nice try, Sammy," all the murdering sonofabitch was able to utter before the elder Winchester was raising his knife and ramming it home. He felt the spongy resistance of flesh beneath the tip of the blade, heard the squelch of sliced tendon and muscle, knew instinctively when the knife had found its target in Gordon's pumping heart. There was a sharp gasp, a wet gurgle and crackle of starved lungs, and a hacking cough. Gordon sagged forward as life left his body, and Dean watched dispassionately as the other man's arms flopped out like whale fins, the gun skittering away several paces.

He'd done it. He'd killed Gordon.

And then a swooping devastation made his blood drain straight to his toes.

Sam...Sammy was dead, was lying lifelessly beneath Walker's body. He was dead.

Dean had been too late. Always too late.

He'd failed again.

o0o0o

"Dean?" Sam crouched gingerly before his brother's cowering form, the appellation rushing out in a stunned, overwhelmed huff of breath. Dean's head was resting on his bent knees, a riot of spiky tufts all Sam could see before the older man's crossed arms obscured the view. His big brother was rocking slightly again, tiny shifts that seemed to shy away from Sam's touch as he ghosted his fingers down Dean's frame. He wasn't certain that he could lay his hands anywhere that wouldn't cause his brother pain, but he wasn't quite able to resist the urge to soothe and comfort either. He couldn't look at Dean's forearms without wincing in sympathy, the mottling bruises seeming to have deepened even in the amount of time since Sam had last seen them. And then there was the ring of torn skin around his wrist which looked to have been bleeding afresh since Bobby had removed the cuffs.

Sam closed his eyes for a brief, bolstering moment, reminding himself that he needed to be the strong one again. Dean had already been through so much, had already _suffered_ so much, and yet he'd still come through for his little brother like he always did. And Sam couldn't quite wrap his mind around what Dean had done to save his life, not that the older man had in any way been to blame. The younger Winchester found himself caught in a prize fight between gladness and horror, the two circling and sniping at each other in the ring as they traded blows. He felt no sympathy for Jud, only relief at the elimination of a threat and satisfaction that the man who'd hurt his brother so much wouldn't be able to hurt him anymore. But killing a human? He didn't quite know what to do with that, and he suspected it would be a long time before he did.

But Dean had to be his priority.

Sam finally plucked up the courage to lay a gentle hand on Dean's shoulder, steeling himself as he felt the shuddering vibrations of his brother's body carry all the way up his arm. "Hey, Dean, it's me. It's Sammy." He used the nickname again, hoping it would still reach his brother however far away he was. "I'm going to take care of you, alright?" He moved the hand to Dean's head, carefully smoothing his fingers across the tousled spikes. "Dean?"

"Sammy's gone." The reply was achingly mournful, so soft and muffled by the barrier of Dean's arms that Sam had to lean in close to hear it. He felt his heart constrict as its meaning finally reached the surface of his consciousness, and he flinched. _No..._his mind was vociferously shaking its head and waving its arms in determined denial. _Just, no_. He wasn't going through this again; Dean getting upset over him leaving. He _got_ it. He didn't need the message reinforced any further, didn't need to see his brother suffering anymore. He was a selfish screw-up, he already knew that.

"No, it's okay, Dean! I'm here! I didn't leave." He twisted his neck, trying to peer at his brother's hidden features, pressing insistently at Dean's arm in an attempt to move it out of the way. The connection they'd had just minutes earlier seemed to have vanished however, leaving Sam with a hollow, cavernous sense of loss that felt all too devastatingly familiar after the euphoria of feeling whole again. His brother had drifted away once more, wandering somewhere that Sam couldn't hope to find him.

"I'm sorry." Dean's voice was barely raised above a whisper but Sam could still hear the crushing grief, the defeat and desolation in his tone. "I couldn't save him, Dad. Gordon...he...he killed him. It was my fault."

"W-what?" Sam stammered, floored by what his brother had just said, his hand beginning to clench where it rested on Dean's arm as he felt his mind go into a nosedive. Dean hadn't been upset about him leaving, he'd been..._Oh, god_.

"Tripwire," Dean mumbled miserably in response, his breath catching with a tight groan of pain. "I couldn't stop it, Dad. I couldn't warn him."

Sam dropped his chin to his chest as the horror dawned on him, scrubbing his free hand through his hair and grabbing a thick handful as if to rip it from his head. Dean thought he'd really died in Gordon's grenade explosion...

Opening his eyes again, he clenched his teeth and ground them agitatedly. How much was his brother supposed to bear? How much was he going to be forced to relive? How much was Sam going to be forced to _watch_?

Sam remembered deliberately setting off the tripwire grenades so that he could turn the tables on his would-be killer, forewarned by Ava and knowing he would be able to evade their blast. But there had been no way of tipping Dean off. God...his brother had really believed...? He scoffed internally at himself, of _course_ Dean had thought that, his brother hadn't been aware that Sam had known what he'd been walking into. The younger Winchester realised with no small amount of shame that he had never really thought about what it might have been like for Dean that night; helplessly bound and gagged while the world exploded around him. While his kid brother apparently exploded around him.

Damn.

His insides writhed as he recalled the flippant way he'd been with his brother after they'd gotten Gordon safely packed off to jail. He'd have known better than to say anything about it to Dean – the Winchester's didn't do that kind of thing, after all – but Sam ought to have understood how friggin' terrifying that had to have been for his brother. Hell, he'd nearly lived through the same experience just moments earlier, and could still feel his nerves jangling with the lingering _what-might-have-been_ anxiety. Sam's mind flashed him back to the time he'd sat in the Impala, watching and listening to his irate brother as he chewed Ellen out over the phone. That more than anything should have told him how rattled Dean had been. Only the younger Winchester knew he'd been too pissed, perturbed and preoccupied to notice.

And now that Sam thought about it, his brother's behaviour after Jud's gunshot suddenly made much more sense. Dean had almost literally relived the explosion. Sam sighed, his lungs choked and clogged with regret. What a mess he'd made of things. _I'm sorry, Dean_.

The sudden juddering of Dean's shoulders warned Sam of his brother's tears even before he caught the smothered snuffling, and though he knew he ought to have been moving Dean, getting him back to the Impala and back to the motel, he found he couldn't do anything else except pull Dean close. Almost numb with shock and exhaustion, he took refuge in his instincts, and wrapped his arms around his brother, needing the comfort just as much as Dean seemed to. The elder Winchester remained tensely curled, not even slackening at the familiarity of his little brother's embrace. And somehow, that was even more painful than not being recognised by face nor voice. Sam braced himself against shakes and shudders, murmuring softly to Dean as he had done all those days ago when his brother had been grieving for their father, almost certain that it was doing nothing more than allaying his own distress, but not knowing what else he could do. Desperate, he pretended to be their father again, telling Dean that 'Sammy' was fine, that he was alive, and that he was waiting for them back at the motel. But the words had no effect, rebounding off Dean like a rubber ball against a wall.

The helplessness of it all was ripping him at the seems.

Sam glanced up as Bobby re-entered the shack. He was looking rumpled and dishevelled, his clothes clotted with mud and stained with grass, his baseball cap almost comically askew. Earlier, the two of them had dragged Jud's body outside to the rear of the shack in preparation for a hunter's burial – not that the bastard deserved the honour of such a ritual. No, this was purely pragmatic, a vengeful spirit with Jud's sadism not something they wanted to risk. Sam had left the elder hunter to the digging, any guilt he might have felt about the action vastly overridden by his desire to see to his brother. That, and Bobby had told him to skedaddle with a grim expression and the threat of gunfire if he didn't get his ass back into the building. Sam hadn't stopped to argue.

"How's he doin'?" Bobby asked roughly, sharp eyes assessing Dean with one practised sweep. His voice was thick, either from exertion or concern. Or both. Sam could easily read the worry shining in his friend's eyes, knowing it was reflected in his own. The younger Winchester looked back at Dean for a moment, to where his brother was still huddled rigidly against him. Dean hadn't once raised his head, nor shifted from his hunched position. The tears had stopped a few minutes earlier though, leaving him in a motionless, lifeless stupor. Sam wasn't sure which he preferred. He turned back to Bobby and shook his head, his crumbled thoughts unable to cobble together even a basic summary of how bad things really were.

"How's it going out there?" He opted for neutral territory, voice still cracking half way through. He was grateful when his old friend didn't call him on it.

"Got some ways to go," Bobby replied, rubbing a muddy hand across his face and leaving a smudged trail in its wake. "But you need to get him outta here, Sam. He needs patchin' up."

Crap.

Sam nodded distractedly, though internally a landslide had surged into motion; trees were uprooted, buildings were bulldozed, people fled in all directions. Damn, damn, damn! As if he hadn't already messed up enough. He ought to have gotten Dean to the Impala far earlier, his brother needed medical attention, or at least, the best medical attention that Sam could give him. But he'd gotten so caught up in Dean's distress that he'd forgotten how long his brother had been sitting there with likely broken ribs. _Dammit!_ Not to mention the fact that Dean might have been going into shock from the extent of his injuries...which Sam still didn't know because he hadn't checked.

"Yeah," the younger Winchester agreed absently, eyes skittering from side to side as he berated himself. There were so many things he needed to do, tasks and necessities that were juggling in his mind's hands at bewildering speed. He started to to shift from his position, the stiff muscles in his shoulders snapping and popping like firecrackers, but paused mid-motion as a thought struck him. "But what about you, Bobby? How will you get back?"

The elder hunter levelled him a glare that was just shy of the bitchface he looked to have been aiming for. Dean _had_ always told his little brother with perfect seriousness that Sam had the expression down to an art form, and that no one else could touch it. Looked like he was right. "How exactly do you think Jud and Dean _got_ here, Sam? Magic carpet? Don't know how you coulda missed that friggin' tank out front!"

"I was a little preoccupied, Bobby!" Sam snarked, his composure cracking. He cast his mind's net back to their arrival at the shack, hoping to catch a floating memory of what the exterior surroundings had looked like, but the image of Dean's bleeding neck had neatly wiped them all out.

"I know, I know," Bobby raised his hands, looking contrite. "Look, I'll take care of things here, and you take Dean back to the motel. We'll need to get rid of that car anyway, so I'll bring it back into the city, wipe it and ditch it."

"Okay," Sam nodded in agreement, before giving Dean a soft pat on the arm. His brother didn't even twitch. "Help me get him up?" He looked hopefully up at Bobby.

Dean was pliant and docile as the two men placed a hand on each arm, and another on his lower back, and gently hoisted him upwards. Sam had never seen his brother so meek and subdued, and the contrast to his normally boisterous, cocky self was devastatingly striking. The younger Winchester could barely hold back a gasp as he caught sight of Dean's newly unveiled features. His brother was grey and stony, expressionless and blank. His eyes were fixed unblinkingly forwards, devoid of all the life and expressiveness that Sam had come to expect and rely upon. Dean looked so..._dead_ that Sam almost moved a hand to check his pulse, but stopped himself as he saw his brother give a slow, bovine blink. He felt tears gathering at the rims of his eyes, terrified that they were already too late; that Dean had gone past the point of no return.

"Dean?" He coaxed softly, nodding at Bobby to start guiding him from behind. But there was nothing, not even a flicker. No sign that his brother had even heard anything at all. The only indications that Dean was processing anything were the shaky grimaces that cascaded in a waterfall of agony down his features. It figured that his brother would get pain and nothing else.

They shuffled forwards, their journey slow as Dean inched along on torn soles. He moved with zombified limbs, Sam and Bobby bearing the brunt of both power and steering. The chill that radiated from his big brother's body had Sam more than a little panicky, and it took every ounce of his restraint not to just throw Dean over his shoulder and haul him back to the Impala. But god only knew what damage such a rash course of action might do to broken ribs, and so Sam forced his patience to round up the flock of dissenting thoughts and cage them away where they couldn't tempt him anymore.

They walked in silence, the only sound penetrating their airless, suffocating bubble the soft whiffling breaths of Sam's catatonic brother. Bobby would glance over at the younger Winchester every so often, but Sam resolutely ignored him, knowing that to speak would be to open the floodgates. He didn't gather the strength to open his mouth until they had Dean finally settled in the passenger seat of the Impala. The elder Winchester continued to stare straight in front of him, out the car's windshield, not even moved by the presence of his beloved car.

Sam swallowed against the ever present constriction in his throat, and turned to face his old friend. "Okay, so how long do you think it'll take?"

Bobby shrugged in response, but there was no sincerity to the gesture, the older man's eyes not leaving Dean's cadaverous form. "Couple hours, give or take."

"Okay," Sam replied, blinking furiously as traitorous tears began to slip down his cheeks. Bobby caught them with kind eyes as he shifted his attention from Dean.

"Take care of Dean," he urged warmly, "get started on that spell and I'll be back soon."

Sam nodded as he inhaled heavily through his nose, willing the tears away.

"Don't give up, son. We'll get him better."

o0o0o

_To all who wanted to see Jud get his comeuppance, hope this did the trick! Thanks for reading, I'd love to hear your thoughts..._


	15. How Many More Times

Thanks to everyone who has been so generous with their kind words for the last chapter, and to all who have favourited and alerted.

I am truly indebted to Sharlot, who has worked tirelessly to beta this story so that you don't have to deal with annoying typos and editing fossils, and has been endlessly patient and supportive. Many of my favourite scenes in this story would not exist without her encouragement.

One more quick note before we get on with the story. This chapter is dedicated to my good pal Beckydaspatz, who inspired the boys' childhood snippets. These are for you hun!

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 15 – How Many More Times**

Dean hadn't moved so much as a hair since Sam had gunned the Impala's engine and roared away from the condemned shack. His ashen, clammy skin gave him the appearance of a waxwork figure as he sat rigidly in the position that Sam and Bobby had arranged him earlier. Neurons firing in a frenzy that left him feeling perpetually buzzed and edgy, the younger Winchester's hands had been shaking where they gripped the steering wheel, his teeth chattering as he shivered involuntarily. Worried sick about his brother, Sam hadn't been able to stop himself from constantly checking for signs of life. But breath still gusted unevenly against the back of Sam's diagnostic hand as he held it in front of Dean's nose and mouth, and his brother's pulse still fluttered delicately against the pad of his probing finger. Beyond those basic vitals however, the elder Winchester would respond to no external stimulus. And after the first twenty attempts to ignite even a faint spark of light in Dean's pupils, Sam had sighed heavily and given up.

Torn between relief at Dean's relative safety and frustration that he couldn't reach him, Sam had found himself constantly battling the urge to pull the car over, grab his brother by the shoulders and shake him until he friggin' _said_ something. The silence was killing him. Dean shouldn't _be_ silent. Dean was never silent. Sam wouldn't even have complained if Dean had wanted to rant and rave at him, or – god help him – even _sing_. The Animals would even have been music to his ears, anything to give presence to the figure sitting next to him.

But when it came down to it, Sam knew he'd have to accept the fact that he was alone in the Impala, the Chevy his only companion as they devoured the miles of asphalt. She felt...wrong, hesitant and subdued beneath him as he guided her onwards. She knew something wasn't right, Sam was certain of it, and the younger Winchester could feel her confusion; her master finally present once more, and yet so very absent.

Sam wrenched his gaze away from where it had been forlornly contemplating his brother to focus on the road, knowing he'd spent more time watching Dean than he had the world beyond the Impala's fender, and acknowledging ruefully that it wouldn't do either of them any good if he wrapped them round a telephone pole somewhere along the way. Didn't stop his eyes from ticking back and forth like a pendulum, though. Not that it got him anywhere; the ramrod river of asphalt before him changing about as little as Dean's expression did.

He sighed, feeling no tension leave his body at the motion. He knew he was going to ache in the morning, hell he was aching _now_. Every cell was still throbbing from the force of Jud's groin shot, a heavy cloud of pain that had been gradually spreading outwards like a nuclear fallout. Sam lifted an unsteady hand to rub at his dried out eyes in the hope of clearing the thick layer of grit that coated his retinas. He'd long since passed exhausted's city limit and was fast heading out into a depleted, spent wilderness. Sleep was somewhere back in the opposite direction, a trail he could probably map out easily enough if he tried, but Sam knew he'd be taking the scenic route.

Glancing at the radio, his heart leapt as a sudden thought struck him. He fiddled with the catch on the glove box, allowing it to fall open with a clatter as he rifled through it for the special, hand-picked collection of cassette-tapes Dean always kept there; the ones he really _did_ blare out on constant repeat rather than the boxed up ones that appeared less frequently – but still more than often enough to irritate Sam – on his playlist. Some of them Sam hadn't managed to salvage from the wrecked Impala after the accident, but he'd surprised his brother with replacements he'd painstakingly scouted out at any thrift store he'd come across during their travels. New ones their budget hadn't been able to stretch to, but Dean had appreciated them nonetheless. Well, he'd told Sam off for being a sappy, wussy, girly-girl, but the the younger Winchester had spied him running his fingers reverently across the surface of the _Razor's Edge_ cassette case later that day. Sam hadn't mentioned it. And his nose had remained mercifully intact.

In the past Sam would have griped and groaned incessantly about his brother's almost pathological need to play the same songs over and over and over, belting them out at the top of his lungs – he couldn't even listen to _Hells Bells_ anymore without hearing Dean's high-pitched screech. But since he'd watched a reaper make a grab for his big brother, stuff like that hadn't mattered so much.

Sam felt his fingers close around the nearest cassette, and he rammed it into the radio slot without even checking to see which one it was. He flinched as the opening bars of _In My Time of Dying_ filled the car, and began jabbing at the controls in a panic, trying to switch it off. Sam's relieved exhale filled the car's interior as silence descended once more. He looked anxiously at Dean, but saw no hint of a reaction. The younger Winchester huffed heavily through his nose again and pursed his lips, not sure if he was disappointed or not. He pondered the noiselessness for a few beats, feeling it press against him from all sides before coming to a decision. He didn't think he could handle another half hour of his own lonely rumination.

The younger Winchester leaned over again, forwarding the tape to a song he could tolerate and to which Dean normally couldn't help but bash out a percussion beat on the steering wheel every time he heard it. Sam nodded his head resolutely to the rhythm of _Trampled Under Foot_, determined that he was going to be distracted. The trouble was, the music was so _Dean_ that it did nothing to divert his thoughts. Nevertheless, he continued, convincing himself that on some level his big brother might be comforted by it.

Dean had dozed off by the time they reached the outskirts of Peoria, head gently tucked into his shoulder as his hair grazed the passenger side window. He was curled slightly in his seat, hands delicately cradling his middle in such a gesture of vulnerability that Sam's heart ballooned with protectiveness. And though the loss of his brother's wakefulness had still made him feel more alone, the younger man couldn't help but be comforted by the fact that his brother was finally getting some rest.

Every so often, patches of the elder hunter's pallid cheeks would be bathed in the anaemic, artificial glow of the street lamps passing overhead, giving Sam an ever clearer view of the bruises that dappled his features. The younger man bit his lip, wondering how many more times he was going to have to see his brother hurt, suffering. Skin had been split in several places, the dried blood darkened like scorch marks, the accompanying swelling making his face look tight and pinched. Dean's breathing had evened out considerably since sleep had drawn him under its spell, but every bump and jostle from the road beneath resulted in low, pained groans, though Sam had studiously avoided every pothole he saw.

The raw, ruptured skin on Dean's neck stood out starkly and gruesomely, a macabre necklace that didn't look real, that looked fake like a joke shop scar. Though the blood had long since stopped oozing, Sam still eyed the puckering, coagulating wound on an almost constant basis. The memory of how close he'd come to losing his brother darted across his vision in a meteor shower of images and play-by-plays. The wound was there as a constant reminder, an ever present emblem of the danger Dean was still in.

Sam almost cried out in relief when he finally turned the Impala into the motel parking lot. It felt like an age since he'd last been there, when in reality it had been little more than a few hours. He felt like he'd knocked several decades off his lifespan, half expecting to see grey hair and sagging wrinkles when he glanced at his reflection in the rear-view mirror. The younger Winchester eased the Chevy gently towards the kerb nearest to their room, biting his lip in concentration as if he was defusing a nuclear weapon. He didn't want to jostle Dean any more than was necessary, and he was already dreading the short walk to their room.

The elder Winchester stirred feebly as Sam cut the Impala's engine, and the younger man found himself feeling cheered by this sign that Dean really _was_ still tuned in to his beloved car on some unconscious level. Dean let out a faint moan as he shifted frailly in his seat, and Sam stilled, watching to see if he would waken, but his big brother merely rolled his head around to his other shoulder and let out a soft snore. Sam snorted with fond exasperation. It figured that Dean would find some way to be difficult even when he...the younger man paused in his thoughts, suddenly sobering once more. No matter how friggin' childlike his brother looked, nor how friggin' hilarious it would normally have been, he couldn't find it in himself to laugh anymore. This might be all he had of his big brother before he lost him completely.

Sam eyed the distance between the car and the motel room door with weary resignation. He had a faint memory of Dean having practically dragged him to the room the first night they'd stayed there, and now he'd be returning the favour. Again. The younger hunter marvelled that it had only been the previous night that he'd made exactly the same journey, once more ferrying a senseless Dean. He bit his lip, fretting about how difficult it was going to be to get his brother across even the short span of gravel and concrete when Dean was as limp and injured as he was. He'd have to try and waken him first.

Once more he questioned his decision not to just turn the Impala around and point her towards the nearest hospital, though he knew deep down that it wasn't even within the realm of possibility. Not long ago they'd narrowly escaped police custody – _Dean_ having narrowly escaped both extradition _and_ a grisly end in a remote woodland. Sam shivered at the thought. And as if that wasn't a big enough reason, the younger Winchester knew he'd never get Dean back out of hospital once they'd gotten their claws into him; his big brother would have been shoved straight into the locked dementia ward and trapped there. No, they were on their own here. _Sam_ was on his own until Bobby came back.

The younger Winchester reached a hand towards his brother's shoulder to give him a gentle pat, pausing in mid-air as he hesitated uncertainly. The movement would normally have been second nature, something he quite often did whenever Dean was catching up on his sleep in the passenger seat, but he didn't know what kind of reaction he might get from his brother in the state he was in. He frowned, deciding that attempting such a manoeuvre in a confined space probably wasn't one of his better ideas.

When Dean snuffled and then groaned plaintively in evident discomfort, Sam shook himself from his thoughts and hurriedly vaulted from the car. Moving around the Impala's hood, the hunter swept his eyes this way and that, looking for potential threats. Jud had made him jittery, and he wasn't about to blithely assume that there weren't other friends of Gordon Walker lurking around. He patted the gun at his waistband reassuringly, knowing that he would do whatever it took to keep Dean safe if anyone else came calling. But the lot was vacant and hushed, nothing and nobody else seeming to exist apart from Sam, the Impala and her dozing occupant. Accepting his assessment, but still far from relaxed, the crunch of the tiny pebbles beneath his feet seemed to blast out like canon fire at each step he took as he lumbered around to the passenger door, causing him to pause half-way just to check that he hadn't somehow managed to alert a sixteenth century armada fleet to his presence. Spying no sign of billowing sails and tall masts, he moved to the passenger door.

Phantom ships still haunting his mind, he plucked a long forgotten memory out of storage and smiled softly. One summer afternoon, their father two days into a planned three day hunt, a then ten year old Dean had taken six year old Sammy down to a small stream that had trickled past the motel room they'd been occupying. The sun hadn't shone once since they'd arrived there – rain plummeting in thick, blurry curtains that blocked out the light – turning the two of them stir-crazy from the enforced confinement. But as soon as the clouds had cleared, Dean had grabbed an old newspaper in one palm, and Sam's pudgy hand in the other, excitedly tugging at his little brother until Sammy was trotting faithfully along after him. It hadn't taken much persuading, it never had in those days. Sam would have followed his big brother anywhere – not that things were much different now. That time he'd followed him down to the stream, now flowing freely after the over-abundance of rainfall. Dean had knelt down at its banks, hastily twisting and folding the newspaper, tongue peeking out between his lips as he concentrated. Sam had watched in fascination as two – admittedly lopsided and shabby looking – boats appeared before his eyes. Even now, Sam had no idea where and when his brother had learned to make them, but then he'd been too delighted to care. They were going to race them, Dean had announced dramatically, eyes twinkling. And so they had. The younger man could clearly remember the two of them chasing the boats all along the stream until it disappeared beneath the ground once more, laughing and giggling hysterically all the way. Sam had won of course, though at the time he hadn't been able to figure out which boat was which. But Dean had said...of course he had. Dean had insisted that his little brother had won. Sam knew he'd probably never find out whether that had been true, but then again, he didn't need to.

Sam gazed through the window at Dean's slumbering form, almost paralysed by the rush of fierce affection the memory had evoked. His big brother had done so much for him, had looked after him, had always put Sam's needs before his own. And the one time he hadn't, the one time he'd put someone else's needs first – and not even his own, Sam noted ruefully – he'd managed to get himself infected by a supernatural disease. "What am I going to do with you, huh?" Sam murmured softly, reaching for the door handle and easing it carefully open. He knelt down, laying a hand on his brother's shoulder.

When Dean shifted away from his touch, the younger Winchester tried not to take it personally, but he couldn't help the way his heart sank all the way past his toes and into the ground beneath him. Setting his jaw, Sam determinedly batted aside his own self-indulgence. This was about Dean, and not about him. Still, his brother's instinctive retreat hurt. A lot. "Dean," he tried the elder hunter's shoulder again, this time being rewarded with fluttering eyelashes and a sleepy grumble of protest. The sound was so familiar – so _routine_ – it was almost unbearable, and Sam swallowed against a suddenly dry mouth.

"C'mon man," Sam coaxed, unable to prevent a spreading smile when Dean finally opened his eyes and blinked dolefully at him. His brother never _had_ liked being roused from sleep, and that much, at least, hadn't changed. The expression was so _Dean_ that Sam nearly forgot everything else, but then his brother blinked languidly and returned to robotic blankness. The younger man took a deep, steadying breath as he forced back his disappointment.

"That's it, c'mon Dean, we need to get you inside." The elder Winchester did little more than stare passively back at him, and once again Sam found his brother's lack of spirit deeply unnerving. Shaking himself, he resolutely pressed on, keeping up a running recital of every kind of encouragement, platitude and praise he could think of as he slipped his hands around his brother, avoiding Dean's injured ribs as much as possible, and levered him upwards. Thankfully, after a

worrying few moments where he nearly slithered out of Sam's careful grip, Dean seemed to unconsciously realise his little brother's intention – either that or his body was merely playing out a well-rehearsed and automatic routine – for he slowly lifted his arms to brace against the door frame, aiding their progress as Sam eased them backwards out of the car.

Dean teetered madly on the spot like a bobo doll as he tried to find his balance, and Sam, already having kept his arms held out in front of his brother as Dean negotiated the car door, darted forwards again to steady him. "Hey, easy Dean. I gotcha!" His hands were light but firm as they tentatively guided his big brother away from the Impala, half expecting Dean to explode from his grip at any moment, or to take a furious swing at him. But like before, back at the old farmhouse, Dean moved obediently to any position Sam sought to place him in. The younger Winchester locked the car with an even heavier heart before wrapping his cast covered arm around his brother's back and supporting him as they edged forwards, step by wobbling step.

They were nearly at the door when Dean's seemingly bottomless reserve of strength finally hit empty. One second he was upright, albeit leaning heavily on Sam, and the next his knees suddenly buckled, dropping him instantly to the ground. He let out a hoarse yell of pain at the same time as Sam frantically called his brother's name. The younger Winchester, caught off guard as he'd been searching his pockets for the motel room key, didn't manage to break Dean's fall until his brother was halfway to his knees. He hastily yanked his hand from where it had been trapped in the pocket of his jeans and scrambled to catch Dean before he landed bodily on the ground, horrified when his hasty grab jarred his brother around the middle. The hitched, agonised breath was almost worse than the way Dean had groaned earlier, the pain too much for his brother to even vocalise.

"Dammit!" Sam hissed as Dean pushed weakly away from him with a low groan, trying to curl into a protective ball. "Sorry, man. I'm sorry." He closed his eyes, allowing the self-recrimination to wash over him. He always seemed to manage to hurt Dean even when he was trying to protect him, and hadn't that been the problem all along?

As gingerly as he could, he eased Dean upwards until his big brother was on his feet, albeit bent nearly double and fluttering like a flag in blustery winds. The younger Winchester cursed vehemently as he shifted his balance, juggling both Dean and the heavy door key he'd somehow managed to extract from his pocket. Every so often the older man would slide slowly, dangerously from Sam's grasp, head lolling and rolling, forcing the young hunter to keep adjusting his hold. But every time Sam moved his palm to a new location on Dean's body he seemed to hit upon yet another bruise, causing Dean to gasp and groan in pain. He bit his lip as he unlocked the door, the injustice of it all making him want to scream until his throat was torn and shredded. But he kept his voice as steady as he could, knowing that his brother was too far gone to pick up on the near hysterical vibrato that quivered at the edge of his tone."I know it hurts, Dean, but it's going to be alright. I'm going to take care of you, I promise."

Sam had no way of knowing if any of his words had penetrated through the fog of disorientation that blanketed Dean, but he hoped on some level that his brother felt protected and safe; that he wasn't suffering and afraid, unable to verbalise his distress.

They negotiated the room in darkness, Sam not wanting to spare the time nor risk tipping their fragile balance even to flick on the light. Sam could tell that his cargo was hurtling fast towards unconsciousness again and the younger Winchester needed to make sure his brother was horizontal before Dean reached his destination. Not for the first time Sam was glad of his extra few inches. It turned out they were good for more than just taunting his brother and reaching top shelves. Dean's dragging feet would likely have been even more ruined by the prickly flooring had his little brother not been able to use his height advantage to make sure that they merely skimmed the carpet surface. Dean's cheek came to rest along the ridge of his shoulder as Sam hitched him up further and held him closer. The younger man could feel the tingle from where his brother's spiky hair brushed against his neck as they moved, a closeness Dean only ever allowed when he was...well, when he was either hurt or drunk. When he wasn't aware enough to realise what he was doing.

Finally reaching the bed – and Sam had decided that covering the extra few feet to the farthest one was time and energy well spent if it kept Dean safer – the younger Winchester carefully laid his big brother down on its surface, wincing as the injured man shifted against the hard mattress in discomfort. _Don't blame me_, Sam muttered internally, _this place was _your_ choice, dude_.

Silence seemed to fall in misty droplets like morning dew as Sam waited for his brother to settle. He watched with worried affection as Dean fidgeted on the bed, pressing the back of his head down hard against the pillow as he searched for some modicum of softness on the craggy bedclothes. It took several minutes for Dean's eyes to draw fully closed, and even in the gloom Sam could see his brother's thick lashes fanning out against his pale skin as his lids finally settled.

Once the younger man was certain that Dean was too out of it to get any ideas...like trying another _Great Escape, _Sam spun on the spot, striding with efficient haste towards the door, not even breaking stride as he reached out an albatross wing of an arm and snapped on the light. He was back at the Impala in seconds, the trunk flying carelessly open as he feverishly dug around for the first aid kit. He grumbled under his breath as he pushed aside a whole mountain range of Dean's dirty laundry (he was sure it had been his brother's turn to take a trip to the Laundromat) and several old blankets until he pulled the small, precious box from the detritus, chest puffed out triumphantly as he held it victoriously aloft. They really ought to just leave it at the top of the pile, the amount of times it seemed to get used. Sam unclipped the latch and briefly examined its contents, dismayed to note the dishearteningly low amount of heavy duty painkillers they had left. When was the last time they'd stocked up? Sam thought they'd snaffled some supplies from that clinic back in Rivergrove, but then, much of that whole débâcle had become a distorted blur when he looked back through his mental film reel. He'd have to ask Bobby to get more; with Dean's ribs the way they were, his brother was going to need them.

Sam slammed the Impala's trunk shut with an impatient thud, grimacing as the sound seemed to echo in a crescendo around the quarry-like parking lot and biting his lip when several lights blinked on in the surrounding rooms. Rolling his eyes scornfully at himself, he hurried back inside before anyone thought to twitch their curtains at him.

Seeing Dean still lying on the bed, exactly where Sam had left him made the younger Winchester loudly exhale a breath he didn't realise he'd even been holding. Not that he'd thought Dean could really vanish while he'd been standing directly outside their room, but still...the evening's events had given Dean a frightening impermanence that Sam was having real trouble overcoming.

He dropped the first aid kit on top of the other bed with a muffled thud, realising with a dispirited groan that he'd have to remove Dean's clothing as far as possible before he could properly tend to him. The bruises and scabs already visible told a frightening story of what might have been hidden underneath. He ran his gaze the length of his brother's prone body, assessing the complexity of the task ahead. There was no way he wanted to risk pulling his brother's shirt up and over his head, Dean's ribs already having been crunched and jolted far too much for Sam's liking. He'd have to cut it off, same with the jeans. Dean would be frustrated when he found out, the loss of further items of clothing something neither of them could afford with their finances being as limited as they were. But really, the garments were beyond salvaging. The shirt was too splattered with Dean's blood to be restored, and the jeans were torn and scraped more than even his brother would have deemed 'fashionable'.

Sam withdrew a small penknife from his pocket and reached for the bottom edge of Dean's soiled shirt, meaning to slice from bottom to top, but the elder Winchester flinched at his approach, eyeing him with wild wariness from beneath pain-drugged lids that had opened to half-mast at the scrape of the younger man's nearing footsteps. The sound he let out was all frightened animal and Sam froze, knife arm dropping dejectedly to his side. The younger Winchester mentally smacked himself upside the head for his own thoughtlessness. He couldn't do this while Dean was awake, it wasn't fair on his brother. No matter how much he explained, he was pretty certain that Dean wouldn't understand that he was trying to help and not hurt.

"It's alright, Dean. It's okay," he sighed out the same tired, hackneyed reassurance as he laid the knife down on the other mattress and reached instead for the small container of pills in the first aid kit. What few tablets remained seemed to rattle around listlessly as he moved to the small kitchenette, as if they knew that the fate of their departed fellows was about to befall them too. Returning to Dean's side with a glass of water, Sam hovered fretfully, not quite sure how he was going to get his brother to take the analgesics. In the end though, he needn't have worried. Like when he'd gotten himself out of the car, Dean seemed to reach forward automatically for the glass, compliantly putting the pills into his mouth when Sam placed them in his palm. The younger Winchester placed a hand underneath Dean's neck, gently supporting him as he leaned forward to drink the water. "That's it, man. You're doing great." When Dean's lip twitched with an almost sarcastic flair in response to his little brother's affected enthusiasm, Sam had the fleeting thought that maybe his brother wasn't as far gone as he'd appeared. But then Dean settled back with a wrenching wheeze and closed his eyes, blocking Sam out.

Sam stood by the bed for several long moments, watching as the rise and fall of Dean's chest slowed from gusting puffs to a light, breezy rhythm. When he was certain his brother was truly unconscious, he retrieved the knife and got to work.

o0o0o

The reality was so much worse than he'd been imagining.

Sam tossed his brother's ruined shirt aside with a snapping, agitated flick of his wrist as his eyes took in the bruises that polka-dotted the entirety of Dean's torso; the lighter splodges that peppered his upper chest clustering and melting into a deep, mass of ferocious purple at his midriff. There were boot shapes. Friggin' _boot_ shapes...driven into his brother's flesh with so much force Sam could practically make out the pattern that had ridged its sole. His lips thinned as he remembered the motley bunch of thugs they'd stumbled across earlier that night, the ones who'd hurt Dean, who'd beaten the crap out of him. When his big brother had been too senseless to defend himself.

Sam took a gulp of air too quickly and coughed tightly. It had galled him to let those sons of bitches walk. What he wouldn't give to...he clenched his fist until his arm shook with barely suppressed rage. But no. No. Dean needed him right now, and boiling, fizzing, frothing thoughts of vengeance weren't going to clean the cuts that puckered his brother's skin nor soothe the bruises that swirled across his body in a rainbow of nebulae. Sam let his fingers slacken off as sympathy rose up to quell his anger. Even Dean's legs hadn't escaped the onslaught, swollen, knotted lumps had been tied and tightened beneath his scraped epidermis, roped in a line down the length of his limbs.

Oh, Dean. His brother had to have been in agony even as he'd sat next to Sam in stillness and silence during their journey back to the motel. The younger Winchester had always known that Dean possessed a hide thicker than a rhinoceros' when it came to withstanding pain, but this took it to a whole new level. And shed his brother's later whimpers in a whole new, agonising light.

"Jesus," Sam murmured, paralysed for a brief moment as he took in the extent of the damage. His only consolation was that Dean appeared to have faded into a deep slumber. The older man hadn't so much as twitched when Sam had cut away his clothing. In fact, he'd looked almost peaceful, his features slackened and relaxed. Sleep had stripped away the years again, as it always did, and Sam felt almost parental as he stood guard at his brother's side.

The younger Winchester weighed the first-aid kit in his uninjured hand, eyes darting from the gash on Dean's neck, to the torn groove around his wrist, to the bruises and cuts and swelling and, and, and...He didn't even know where to start. His brother's injuries lay before him like a field full of land-mines, and even though Dean was asleep, he couldn't help but fret that one false step would detonate and reignite his brother's pain.

But he couldn't keep standing here worrying uselessly. Dean had never once hesitated in taking care of him, no matter how gruesome the injury nor how hysterical his little brother had been. And there had been some that Sam couldn't even let his memories touch without his cheeks turning a nauseating, sage colour. Like the time he'd gotten a compound fracture on his elbow at the age of ten after falling out of a tree he'd been climbing. Never mind that Dean had told him repeatedly not to go up there, Sammy had been a ten year old boy completely and utterly bored out of his mind, and completely and utterly fascinated by the gnarled and knobbly tree that stood hunched and stooped like a fairytale hag across the road from their motel. So he'd waited until Dean had gone for a shower before sneaking from the room. All it had taken had been Sammy's terrified, anguished yell and Dean had been sprinting from the motel room, all murmured comforts and gentle hands as he'd delicately swung his little brother into his arms and carried him to safety. Dean hadn't so much as blanched at the sight of the splintered, protruding bone that had given Sam nightmares for months afterwards, other than to fuss and fret the same way he would have if his little brother had scraped a knee.

Sam swallowed heavily, gripped the first-aid kit tighter and sat down with painstaking care on the edge of Dean's bed, seeing his brother's limbs shift slightly at the mattress' dip. Leaning over his brother, Sam couldn't help but run a hand through Dean's hair, tufting it again where the pillow had flattened it. His fingers stilled as his brother let out an almost contented sigh, that small rush of air somehow touching Sam somewhere deep, the memory of his brother's earlier retreat now thoroughly obliterated.

"I'm going to make everything okay, Dean. I swear," he vowed, opening the box.

He had to. There was no other option.

o0o0o

Sam glanced up when Bobby re-entered the motel room, bleary eyes turning the edges of his old friend's figure into a streaky blur. The elder hunter seemed to jerk and stutter like a spirit as he turned to shut and lock the door – nobody was being too careful since Dean's last excursion. Sam dug his fingers into his eye sockets, willing them to re-focus. "You get them all?" he wearily asked, voice dragging its feet as it trudged across the room. He brightened slightly as his vision sharpened, only to realise that his muddied retinas had actually been protecting him from recognising the extent of Bobby's fatigue. Now that he could really see his friend's features, he could discern the dullness in the older man's eyes, the way his beard seemed to droop, the way his cap sat lopsidedly atop his head.

Bobby held up a brown paper bag as he approached the table where Sam sat with the open laptop. "Got me a strange look when I asked for the pig testicles, but yeah, I got 'em all."

Sam raised his eyebrows at his friend's deadpan tone, wondering just exactly what kind of line Bobby had spun down at the local butcher's in order to get all the animal parts they'd need to carry out their counter-spell. Spying the faintly disgusted expression that tinged Bobby's face, he decided that perhaps he'd rather not find out. "Good," he nodded, weariness making his head swim at the motion.

"He still sleepin'?" The bill of Bobby's cap jerked towards the farthest bed.

"Out like a light," Sam murmured, eyes tracking the gentle undulations of Dean's chest. He'd pulled the quilt up practically as far as his brother's chin to cover his wounds and keep him warm, but the pristine gauze on his neck still shone out like a beacon to eyes that seemed to seek it out with compulsive regularity. The gash had reopened several times when Sam had cleaned it out, and his hands still shook at the memory.

Bobby had returned from taking care of Jud sometime in the small hours, his whole demeanour practically an exhausted sigh. His voice had been hoarse, scraping like a tin can kicked along a concrete path. Jud's body had been salted and burned, he'd reported, the car disposed of somewhere it could never be traced back to them. Sam had merely ducked his head and muttered a feeble thanks, utterly shattered after nursing and tending to his brother's many injuries. He'd not long finished by the time of Bobby's return, the treating of Dean's wounded body feeling akin to untangling a large, inextricable knot. The elder Winchester had mercifully slept through Sam's ministrations, the painkillers having worked their soporific magic to ample effect. He'd wakened several hours later though, groggy and uncoordinated, knocking a glass of water off the nightstand next to his bed with a wildly flailing arm. Sam and Bobby had snapped to attention at that, immediately abandoning the work they'd been doing and rushing to his side to make sure he didn't hurt himself further. They'd gotten him settled after another dose of medicine and after fifteen minutes of dodging swinging fists and catapulting knees. In the quiet moments after his brother had returned to the Land of Nod, Sam found he could still hear the echoing of his brother's pained yowls as they'd restrained him.

"Well, I guess that's somethin'," Bobby tossed back out of the corner of his mouth, the words ringing hollow, more something to say rather than genuine sentiment. Sam shrugged a shoulder, the gesture stiff and awkward, more something to respond with rather than genuine agreement.

It was getting on for ten in the morning, the night having been spent poring over Fiona's little black recipe book, consulting whatever sites they could find online and feverishly flicking through what few books Bobby habitually stored in the back of his truck. It had been a night of seemingly interminable length, but under Bobby's tutelage and direction their counter-spell slowly began to take shape. They were nearly there, and Sam could feel it. The anticipation buzzed through his veins like a caffeine hit, and he knew it was almost certainly the only thing that was keeping him from faceplanting on the floor. He hadn't eaten anything, hadn't slept...but he didn't want to allow himself any of those luxuries until he knew his brother was going to get better. If he took time for himself now, and then Dean died...these were precious seconds he couldn't afford to squander.

There was still one fly in the ointment though; the line Bobby had left him wringing his brain over since he'd left to pick up the ingredients.

"We're close, Bobby," Sam pierced his friend with a hard look. "We have all the ingredients we should need, but I've been staring at that damn line for the last hour..._vocare in rector de insania_...call the ruler of the madness. I've been looking at every source I can think of, and I can't find any mention of how we're going to summon Lyssa, let alone trap her long enough to bleed her for the ritual and get her to say her lines. She's a friggin' _goddess_, somehow I don't think a ring of rocksalt is going to hold her."

Bobby set his bag down on the table with a squelching thud, and Sam involuntarily averted his gaze, not wanting to think about what was really in there. "I've been thinkin'...maybe we're lookin' at this all wrong..." the older man began, removing his jacket and hanging it on the back of his chair before sagging down onto his seat with a heaved sigh.

"What do you mean?" Sam demanded, a frown twisting at his forehead. He set the black grimoire down onto the table surface, feeling his fingers tingle unpleasantly from where he'd touched its pages. The object seemed to crackle with malevolent static and he couldn't help glancing warily at it as though it were about to sprout fangs and attack him.

"Well, the way I see it, that line _could_ mean Lyssa as we first thought, but it might just mean that Adams woman instead." Bobby spread his palms and Sam could sense his uncertainty. Time was dangerously close to running out on them, and they both knew it. They couldn't afford to screw up the spell, the ritual that might be their one shot of saving Dean.

Sam leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table, startling slightly as it seesawed under the extra weight. Biting his lip against the urge to just upend the damn thing, laptop, animal parts and all, Sam ran his tongue along his teeth pensively. "You think?" Was the extent of his well-considered response.

"She _was_ the one who summoned 'em, and she _did _send 'em out after all those folks," Bobby argued, eyebrows raised as he jabbed a finger to punctuate his point.

"The ruler of the madness..." Sam whispered, more to himself than to Bobby, testing out the idea, trying it on for size. The wording was a little formal – but then that was Latin, after all. Overall, it was a good fit. "It makes sense," he nodded, his eyes gleaming as anticipation sprouted and bloomed in his chest. "It makes sense!" He repeated excitedly, pushing up from his chair and reaching hurriedly for his jacket.

"Whoa, wait a darn minute, boy! Where do you think you're goin'? There are a lot of other trees we could be barkin' up before we sniff out the right one. We need to work this out before you go chargin' in there, jumpin' the gun!" Bobby lurched to his feet, arms held wide as he tried to contain Sam's impatient determination.

"All we've done for the last five hours is _work this out_, Bobby! I'm done talking. I'm going to go get this bitch and I'm going to save my brother." Sam stood his ground, legs apart and arms resolutely folded; unyielding as he stared down his surrogate uncle. He'd caught the scent of Dean's cure and he wasn't about to be diverted. He shot a glance at his supine brother, drawing from the strength that was slowly dwindling from Dean. Bobby had a point, of course he did, but Sam knew – without knowing how or why – that this was right, that it was what they needed to do.

"Alright, _alright_!" Bobby lowered his arms, nodding sharply with obstinate defeat. "But you know what this spell means. You know what might happen to this woman..."

Sam stared impassively back at him, determined that he wasn't going to allow Bobby to see how much the words had caught him off guard. Yes, he knew. He knew alright, and yet...

"There's a good chance she'll die, Sam."

_She'd deserve it_, Sam's mind furiously defended even as he sought to instinctively deny it to himself. It didn't sit well with him, how could it? And it sure as hell wouldn't sit well with _Dean_. But his big brother was lying across the room on that bed, dying, suffering because Sam hadn't found a way to fix it. Well, now he _had_ a way to fix it. The only way they knew of and the only way they had time to try. And for Dean...Sam wasn't above admitting to himself that there was no limit to what he'd try, and as much as that frightened him, the prospect of losing his brother frightened him more. And Fiona, well she'd brought these things into being, she'd used them to kill in cold blood. If they needed her to banish what she'd created, then she'd have to face the consequences of her actions. And as if all of that wasn't enough, the bitch had hurt Dean. Might even _kill_ him if this didn't work, and that simple fact alone was more than enough for Sam.

"I know," he replied, hating the slight quaver that undermined the forthrightness of his words. "But I'm prepared to take that chance."

Bobby stared at him for a long moment, and Sam felt his gaze plundering more deeply than he would have liked, feeling almost naked under the scrutiny of eyes that always seemed to see more than they should. Then his old friend nodded steadily, and Sam saw his gaze swing briefly to Dean before resettling on the younger Winchester. "Okay. But before you go on the warpath, we're gonna need to take some precautions."

Feeling slightly off-kilter at the ease with which he'd won their battle, Sam steepled his brows. "What do you mean?"

"We gotta assume that everyone this woman comes into contact with could get whammied by these little buggers," Bobby explained, straightening his cap unnecessarily. "Just wait until I can do a protection spell so you don't get yourself–"

Sam looked away for a moment as the implications of his friend's words sunk in. No. There was _no_ way he was going to hang around for a second longer than he needed to, not even for his own protection. Bobby could cast a spell for himself if he wanted, but Sam was beyond caring. He turned back to his surrogate uncle before interrupting with an emphatic flap of his arms. "So what if I get infected, Bobby? We have the counter-spell, we can just banish them anyway!"

There was a thundering hush that seemed to expand between them in a mushroom cloud of anticipated fireworks. Bobby didn't disappoint.

"Are you _outta your mind_, boy?" The older man exploded, taking several agitated steps towards Sam, his eyes sparking as the fuse of his fear broke. "We don't have_ any_ guarantee that this is gonna work!"

Sam heaved in several impassioned breaths before gritting his teeth. His voice was steady, resolve at the helm as it steered his words. "Well, then I guess I'll just have to die too."

Bobby's expression seemed to dissolve at that, and he strode forward to grasp a handful of Sam's shirt, giving him a vigorous shake as he hissed out a shocked, incredulous "_What?_ Boy, you are seriously–"

But Sam forced away his friend's hands, the momentum of his agitation propelling him forward several long strides before he spun to face the older man. "I'm supposed to go Dark Side, Bobby," he blurted, every stab of pain and fear he'd endured since hearing his brother' confession bleeding out into his tone. He couldn't look at Bobby, shame burning his cheeks as his eyes scoured at a rusty stain on the carpet. "That's what dad told Dean before he died," he continued, head still lowered for several pregnant seconds before his gaze snapped up. "And if I don't...if I don't have Dean...Bobby, I don't know what I might turn into."

"Sam..." Bobby could only stare, aghast. He twitched slightly, as if he wanted to make a move but didn't know what, or how.

Sam just shook his head, knowing what his friend wanted to say but wholeheartedly disagreeing. He looked at Dean once more, his bottom lip quivering.

"I can't lose him, Bobby. I'd rather die."

o0o0o

_Does that count as a cliffhanger? I'm trying to resist, I really am! Thanks for reading...I'd love to hear your thoughts._


	16. Master of Insanity

As always, my heartfelt thanks goes to everyone who took the time to review, favourite and alert.

Sharlot has generously given up so much of her time to beta this story and to scrub it squeaky clean for you all. I appreciate her support and encouragement so much more than I can ever repay.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 16 – Master of Insanity**

The hammering of flesh against wood seemed to rumble the length and breadth of the street like rolling thunder. Birds fled the surrounding trees in droves, snoozing dogs in nearby houses jerked awake with pricked ears, curtains were twitched. All Sam noticed however, was the dull silence that followed, that seemed to suck the air from around him. Worrying at his bottom lip, he pressed his ear to the door, listening for the slightest sound to indicate that anyone was inside. The rest of the world faded out as his senses focussed and sharpened. But dammit, it was quiet enough to hear a friggin'_pin_ drop. Scrunching his features with a near hysterical frustration, he raised his fist once again. He _knew_ she was there; her car was sitting outside, slowly rusting in the driveway even as he stood outside her front door. Waiting. Stewing. Fuming.

He battered at the gleaming veneer once more, not caring now much noise he was making. This was life or death; Dean's. "Open up!" He yelled, long past the point of delicacy or subtlety. And he was desperate. This time, his boldness was rewarded with the hasty tap-tap-tap of scurrying footsteps before a shrill voice rang out from behind the door.

"Go away! I don't know who you are, and I'm not going to open this door. If you don't leave right now, I'm calling the police!" The muffled tirade sounded almost self-righteously terrified, but there was a sternness that Sam, despite himself, couldn't help but feel slightly impressed by. And yet, there was something else that coloured her tone, something bitter and noxious. Something Sam was pretty sure he understood.

"I know what you've been doing!" Long past the point of beating around bushes and wasting time with subterfuge, Dean on his mind – always on his mind –Sam leaned closer to the door, his voice hardening. "I know_everything_. You need to open this door right now." The young hunter shot the door a cursory glance, knowing it wouldn't present much of a barrier if she continued to refuse, but hoping that it wouldn't be necessary to use his shoulder as a battering ram. His hand strayed to the gun that sat in the waistband of his jeans, more than prepared to deploy its persuasive power if he had to. Sam tried not to feel the weight of a Dean-less world bearing down on him, but its crushing pressure was slowly breaking him apart. He would do whatever it took.

"I-I'm sure I don't know _what_ you're talking about!" Came the startled response to his impassioned indictment, defensively rising in pitch in a way that Sam instantly recognised as a fabrication. Dean's voice always squeaked when he knew he'd been caught in a lie, and Sam himself knew of his own propensity to hit a whole new falsetto range when he'd been busted. He felt his blood scorch though his veins at the recognition that the bitch was trying to cover up what she'd done. Not that he'd expected her to come right out and admit it there and then, but he felt an almost irrational infuriation nonetheless. In spite of her denial though, there was a composed panic unravelling and fraying at the edge of her voice. She knew, dammit, she knew she'd been found out. Sam was certain of it.

"I think you do," he managed a steady, uncompromising reply, tensing painfully as he tried fervently to keep a lid on the violence that was threatening to take over both brain and body. "Moira Evans. James Carruthers. Evelyn Smith. Robert Kingston. Jennifer Lawrence," Sam reeled off the names, each one a staccato accusation. "Should I keep going?" He sneered, unable to suppress his open contempt.

There was a pregnant silence as Sam's condemnation seemed to hang in the air on both sides of the door. And unwilling to tolerate even a second of frittered time, Sam began to draw back, fully preparing to barge his way through the shiny, polished obstruction.

He caught her response just in time.

"Oh, god..." The anguished murmur was acknowledgement, shame and fear all rolled into one. Sam stopped mid-motion, brows tussling aggressively as he frowned. The younger Winchester wasn't quite sure what he'd expected: a cartoonish cackle? Another pompous denial? A threat? He only knew that he hadn't expected contrition. And it temporarily derailed his frenzied _Save Dean _bullet train as it lay down prostrate on the tracks before him. Fiona's voice had seemed to drop in height, as if she had lowered her forehead to rest against the door. Then she rallied with a resigned yet determined strength. "I don't know who you are, or how you found out about all this...but if you really _do_ know everything, then you should know to stay away. You should know that it's _dangerous_ to be around me!"

Sam cocked his head as his confusion intensified. The words didn't sound or feel like a threat...which didn't make any sense at all. Fiona _had_ summoned the Maniae, that much he was certain of, and she _had _sent them after the people who had been infected by the disease, there was no other explanation for the book and photos he'd found in her bedroom. And yet...yet something didn't add up. There had been inconsistencies that Sam had uncovered during his investigation, he recalled with a deeper frown, inconsistencies that he'd unconcernedly pushed aside in his determination to find a cure for Dean. Inconsistencies that were starting to look more glaring under the spotlight of hindsight. He felt the tingle from his itchy violence begin to recede as it finally occurred to him that he might not be in possession of enough jigsaw pieces to be able to complete the whole picture. "What do you mean?" He demanded, leaning close to the door once more.

"I can't control them anymore!" It was practically a wail, a bursting dam of emotion. It surged past the door and engulfed Sam with such potency that his jaw fell open in surprise. "It's like they've gone after everyone that I...that I've even...God, Jennifer a-a-and Regina. And Kevin. And that postal w-w-worker. And that poor girl..." She trailed off then, as if these were words that she had never verbalised even to herself, as if finally admitting them out loud had made them real. "Oh god," she said again, her voice taut. "It's probably too late for you now. You need to leave _right away_ while you still can!"

Sam let his eyes drift to a close as the words filtered through his mental polygraph and came out clean. She was telling the truth, he could feel it. But...his mind gave a wordless, dumbfounded shrug...what did that mean about what had happened to his brother? He stared sightlessly at the wooden boards beneath his feet, trying to come up with a story that made sense. Fiona had brought the creatures into being, had ordered them to target the people whom she believed had killed her mother, and then somehow along the way they had slipped their leash. But the blood spell she'd used to call them had kept them bound to her, restricting their ravenous diet to only those who passed by closely enough to take their fancy. And Dean, with all of his self-loathing, guilt and grief, had been their perfect meal.

Sam felt his heart constrict at the thought.

The inconsistencies now he could understand: the lack of photographs of the other victims – of Dean – when he'd uncovered the grimoire; the way she'd begged him not to make her leave her house when he'd called to lure her to the park; the fact that the other victims had seemed so out of place, so illogical. The early victims had been intentional, part of the spell. The others – Dean – were never supposed to have been infected. It lessened the raging fury that writhed within him at the way his brother had suffered, though it did nothing to diminish the fear that still shook ferociously at his heart and mind.

Had that really been it though? Dean getting infected by pure accident? Or not by accident, but by misfortune? Because he'd turned up on Fiona's doorstep that day? That infamous Winchester luck just seemed to be the gift that kept on giving. It was clear to Sam _why_ his brother had been targeted, but it was just as clear now that it hadn't been by design. The young hunter heard the plea in Fiona's tone, could understand her desperation not to let anyone else get hurt, but there was no way he was going to accede to her demand that he leave. "I don't care," he replied bluntly, hearing a small gasp of surprise from the other side of the door. He had to make her see the urgency of the situation. "That reporter who came to visit you a few days ago...Dean...you remember him?"

"Oh, no," she breathed in horror, instantly understanding, "not him too?"

"He's my brother," Sam was faintly impressed that his voice hadn't cracked, as stretched and as close to snapping as his vocal chords felt. But then he swallowed back his emotion, resolve once more taking the helm. "And there's no way I'm backing down until I've cured him."

"What?" Fiona squeaked, clearly flabbergasted at Sam's declaration, but at which one he neither knew nor cared. "But how–"

"We found a way," Sam impatiently cut across her stuttering questions, laying a heavy hand against the door and bowing his head as he laid his cards on the table. "My friend and I, we made a spell that will work. But we need your help."

There was a wet sniffle and a choked gasp, and Sam realised that the woman was sobbing quietly behind the door. Compassion battled furiously with callous indifference as the young hunter reminded himself that she was a cold-blooded murderer, no matter how much he might have sympathised with her motives. And her pain. But with Dean slipping away from him at every passing second, Sam knew that his internal, moral wrangling would have to wait.

"I-I can't," she cried, "They'll get you too, and I can't let that happen! I can't let anyone else get hurt because of me."

Sam sighed, understanding her fear but long since out of patience. "I'm protected," he lied, hoping she would simply take him at his word without wasting time with questions. "I cast a spell. They can't touch me."

A second later and Sam's next sigh was one of relief as the door finally clicked open. It swung gracefully inwards as a diamond-shaped face peered out, enormous, cartoon eyes blinking timidly up at him from behind crookedly positioned spectacles. Fiona seemed ridiculously small and fragile next to his own towering frame, and though she was tensed and coiled like a jack-in-the-box that might spring up at any moment, the younger Winchester could sense a steely resolve that lay just beneath the surface. He swallowed, reminding himself yet again that she had murdered several people.

Seeing her there, gawping awkwardly up at him, Sam didn't quite know what to do with himself. He'd prepared to be threatening, to be looming and leering and scowling and snarling. But the script had been revised at the last moment, and he didn't have his new lines. He and the older woman contemplated each other for several silent seconds, unvoiced conversations passing between their locked gazes. Seeing a deep, molten pain in the depths of Fiona's eyes, Sam suddenly found himself feeling hopeful. She was going to help them, he knew it.

"How did you find out?" She asked faintly, stepping back to allow him entrance into the cramped, poky hallway that he already knew from past experience would make him stoop and contort like Quasimodo.

But that wasn't what made Sam shake his head in refusal. "We don't have time for that right now," he insisted, gesticulating emphatically with a wide flap of his arms. "Please, will you help us?" He begged, more than willing to get down on his knees. And if that didn't work...well, the weight of the gun at his back was an ample reminder that he had other options.

Fiona averted her eyes as if she had just witnessed something tragic and heartbreaking, something that eyes shouldn't see, and Sam wondered what exactly she'd detected in his eyes, realised he didn't care as long as it sealed the deal. When she raised her chin once more, there was a teetering acceptance. "How do I know I can trust you?"

Sam huffed out an agonised breath, eyelids fluttering madly as he fought the inexplicable urge to laugh hysterically. Despite his inner battle however, it was the tears that made it to the fore in the end. They filmed over his eyes, blurring his vision as he choked out his response. "Dean's my brother, and he's...he's _dying_. You have to trust me, because you're the only hope I got left."

She did.

o0o0o

She told him her story while the Impala ducked and dived and swooped and swerved. Sam listened with half an ear as he concentrated on nudging the speedometer as high as he could. The lunchtime traffic clogged their route like drainpipe grime, all stop-start as the traffic lights imposed ruthless order. Sam could feel the Impala's frustration growing just as intensely as his own was, and he unconsciously stroked his thumbs against the smoothness of her steering wheel. The Chevy had come to represent Dean a long time ago, and soothing her now felt like something tangible Sam could do until he reached his brother.

Fiona sat primly in the seat next to him, not even flinching when he screeched into a veering overtake. She'd talked to fill the silence, an uncomfortable awkwardness having settled between them as soon as they'd pulled away from the kerb around the corner from her house – Sam not wanting to chance the Chevy's distinctive shape being remembered and subsequently recognised, just in case – the strangeness and tension of their meeting hardly having been conducive to an easygoing rapport.

She'd sought out the book from black market dealers online, she'd admitted with a sour straightening of her lips, distraught with grief and desperate to find a way to bring her mother's killers to justice. Sam had felt his throat close over at that; he'd lived with the consequences of such frenzied devastation for his whole life, and knew he was just hours away from experiencing it first hand. Outwardly though, he'd said nothing, he'd given no reaction, just letting her speak. As long as it kept her calm, and _with him_ for the ride. Hell, he'd have let her sit and recite the phone book if it would have made her feel better. So he maintained his silence, and his death grip on the Impala's steering wheel, and listened.

When the police investigation had been mothballed, she'd continued with an anger that seemed to whoosh into the Chevy's interior like lit gas, it had been like her mother had died all over again. All the hope she'd had, all the faith she'd placed in the authorities...all for nothing; the culprits walking free. James Carruthers had spat at her in the street one day, she'd revealed darkly, the smug grin that had followed having been the final catalyst. Worldly laws hadn't been going to punish him, nor the others that had been involved, so she'd turned to the otherworldly. She'd laughed mirthlessly as she'd told Sam: she'd always had a fascination with the supernatural, something she'd always tried to suppress and dismiss as superstitious gobbledegook. But she'd wanted to find a way to make those murderers feel what her mother had, to suffer as she had. And so Fiona had gone searching.

She'd described the book to Sam, and he'd recoiled involuntarily, its mere mention sending a shiver tumbling down his spine; a response the older woman's beady eyes hadn't missed. When the younger Winchester had confessed his knowledge – and possession – of the book, he'd half expected a swinging handbag and a bolt for freedom. But Fiona had stayed put, hearing him out. He hadn't apologised, the steely set to his jaw projecting that message loud and clear, but she'd seemed to see something in his eyes then, and yet again Sam wondered what it had been. She'd accepted his explanation though he could tell it galled her. She'd been mollified though, when he'd revealed that the book had been the key to the counter-spell. Fiona would never have found it herself, and she knew it. So she'd nodded her uneasy acceptance and had continued with her story.

It had gone well at first, she'd acknowledged, the Maniae doing what they'd been told. But she'd been naïve, thinking that the creatures would simply fade out of existence as soon as she'd stopped tossing them victims. Sam had almost snorted at that, but had managed to rein in his derision at the last second. He hadn't wanted to risk alienating her, more than aware that her acquiescence stood on a thin layer of icy trust, and yet the ridiculousness of her misjudgement was something he had to fight hard not to sputter incredulously at. How many supernatural creatures had they come across over the years that had flourished because of people like her?

If Fiona had noticed his internal conflict however, she hadn't shown it. Instead, the older woman had shifted to gaze pensively out the passenger side window, avoiding his scrutiny as she continued her story. She'd found out a few days ago, she'd murmured thickly, after Hailey Meier's epic grocery store shoot-out. She'd known then that the creatures had gone rogue, that people were suddenly appearing with symptoms of the disease she'd unleashed. Panicking, she'd returned to the book, desperately trying to find some way to bring them back under control, trying to find some way to get rid of them. But there had been nothing, and all the while, people she knew, people she'd done little more than pass the time of day with were dropping like flies. People she'd never have wanted to hurt. People like Dean. Fiona had graced him with an agonised glance at that, but Sam had only caught it in his periphery, taking _his_ turn to avoid scrutiny by fixing his gaze determinedly on the bumper of the car in front. Clearing her throat uncomfortably, Fiona had diverted her eyes again. The older woman's voice had become dull and monotone by the time she'd reached the end of her tale. She'd gone on to explain that once she'd realised the Maniae were still connected to her, she hadn't known what else to do except stay holed up in her house, too frightened to leave it and risk infecting other innocents.

In a warped way, Sam found he could understand her. He wasn't hypocritical enough to believe that he wouldn't be as hell-bent on revenge as his father, as Fiona, if anything ever happened to his brother at the hands of another. Even as he acknowledged it to himself, his fingers constricted around the steering wheel, itching to wring the necks of the thugs who'd set upon Dean the previous night. But murder, cold and calculated, he didn't think he could ever stomach. He'd glanced at the woman's profile out of the corner of his eye as she'd talked, wondering what exactly he was going to do with her once the ritual was over. If she even survived. He'd fidgeted uncomfortably at that. For all his lofty ideals about murder and the value of human life, he knew what he was doing wasn't much better. He hadn't warned her about the risks. He couldn't, too terrified that she'd back down from helping them out. Still, he knew the guilt would be something that would never truly leave him, that he'd have to live with it forever if Bobby was right about the spell. But he wasn't thinking about that, the future fate of his own soul paling into insignificance at the thought of what life without Dean might be like.

_Killing that guy, killing Meg. I didn't hesitate, I didn't even flinch. For you or Dad, the things I'm willing to do or kill, it's just, uh ... it scares me sometimes. _Unbidden, his brother's words floated back to him; words Dean had spoken with a faint regret. After he'd killed a man to save his little brother. If Sam hadn't got it then, he definitely did now.

_The things I'm willing to do or kill..._Yeah, it scared Sam alright, the lengths he would go to for Dean in return. Didn't mean he was prepared to back down. He wasn't sure what that said about him, or about the Dark Side that seemed to loom portentously in his future. But what he did know was that his future would disappear into darkness without his brother to shine a guiding light. He straightened in his seat, the decision he'd come to a few days earlier returning to the forefront of his mind. If..._when_ he saved his brother, he was going to make sure Dean promised to take care of him. To end him if it came down to it.

After Fiona had told him her story, Sam had briefly made a call to Bobby, filling him in on what he'd discovered and letting him know that they were on their way. The older man had listened with a heavy, burdened silence, and Sam had found he could almost feel the heat from his friend's questioning stare. He wasn't quite sure what Bobby would make of his deception, but neither did he believe his surrogate uncle would give him away. There had been a cautious edge to the older man's tone however, tiptoeing gingerly around the Fiona-shaped elephant that filled the space between them; as if stepping too close would trigger a catastrophic stampede. Sam too, was more than happy to let it be. Returning to the relative safety of a businesslike persona, Bobby had updated him on the progress of his preparations, letting Sam know that they were ready to get started as soon as he and Fiona reached the motel. The younger Winchester had felt his breathing quicken, and his limbs harden as the traffic continued to thwart him. Dammit, they were so close.

He'd tentatively asked after Dean, but his brother had still been down for the count. Which was for the best, he knew, but it disappointed him nonetheless.

Hanging up the call, he'd returned his attention to the road, staring rigidly forward as he fought to master his emotions.

"So this spell, how does it work exactly?" Fiona turned to look at him again after a several minutes of airless quiet.

Sam gulped thickly, hoping his discomfort wasn't audible. He didn't want to talk about her part in it, and what it might mean. "Well," he took a deep, fortifying breath, "we need to make sure that we trap all of the Maniae inside one of their live victims." He puffed the air back out again in a nervous rush. "We have Dean..." he faltered briefly before coughing awkwardly to hide the sob that was building in his lungs like a gathering storm, "so we use a variant of the summoning spell _you_ used to bring the others to him. Then we bind them there, in him," his tongue slipped clumsily over the words as his worry spiked. There was so much that could go wrong. And if they trapped the Maniae inside Dean without banishing them properly, then his brother would die there and then. No second chances. "Then, we perform the counter-spell, which we need your blood to do." He cleared his throat unsubtly, but his passenger didn't seem to notice.

"And then they'll be gone?" She asked hopefully.

"Then they'll be gone," Sam echoed in confirmation, feeling a thrill rise in tempo within him even as his fear crescendoed to drown it out.

"And what happens to all the others?"

"What do you mean?" Sam prised his gaze from the windshield to toss the older woman a confused look.

"I mean, will they be okay? Will they all go back to normal?" Fiona spoke slowly, deliberately, her eyes widened for emphasis. It was clear that she believed the younger man had utterly misunderstood her.

But Sam hadn't missed her meaning at all. The fate of the Maniae's victims was one question that had been slowly gnawing away at the lining of his stomach since he'd left the motel. They'd had the conversation, he and Bobby, sometime during the night, and Sam had successfully managed to keep its implications at bay until the added stress of charging off to Fiona's house had proven too much for his defences to withstand.

Easing the Impala to a halt at yet another uncooperative traffic light, Sam felt the atmosphere around him darken as he recalled his nocturnal discussion with his old friend.

"Bobby..." Sam had begun reluctantly, glancing up from the laptop screen, his lips spasming slightly as they'd sought to form the words he didn't want to vocalise.

"Yeah?" Bobby had responded absently, eyes never straying from the book splayed open in front of him.

"What if..." the younger Winchester had gulped reflexively, Adam's apple bobbing fretfully in his throat, "what if we do this, and we banish the Maniae...and he doesn't get better? What if it's permanent?"

Bobby had looked up then, soft eyes belying the gruffness of his cleared throat. He'd snared Sam and held him with a long, assessing, compassionate look. "We ain't got no guarantees Sam, you know that."

Sam had ducked his head at that, exhaustion, worry and fear drooping at his features.

"But none of the people who died had any physical brain damage," Bobby continued encouragingly, causing Sam to raise his head once more. "Those things, they feed on _energy_, on a person's _essence_. There's a good chance that gettin' rid of 'em will give back what they took," he paused. "But we ain't got no lore on this, son. And we ain't got no other option."

He'd been right, and Sam knew it. Didn't mean he was in any way reassured.

Bouncing his mind back to the present as the light finally changed to allow their passage, Sam shot Fiona an insincere glance. His mouth felt dry, his voice arid and emotionless as he answered her question. "They'll be fine," he declared hollowly, certain that she didn't believe him, and just as certain that he didn't believe himself.

o0o0o

Sam had gone straight to Dean's side as soon as they'd arrived back at the motel, the room's other occupants all but forgotten in four long strides as Sam swooped down on his brother's prone form. The elder Winchester hadn't moved an inch since his little brother had last seen him, and Sam could tell; down to the very last crease on the bed cover. And he knew how obsessive that made him, but fear for Dean had him scrutinising the tiniest details, no matter how trivial. His brother had paled. That was one detail that Sam was definitely not consigning to the 'trivial' category. Dean's blotted bruises and scribbled cuts seemed darker against his wan pallor than they had just a couple of hours earlier, making him look even more fragile and breakable as he lay against the riotously patterned bed. The contrast in both colour and texture was somehow stark and horrifying, the vibrant hues seeming to suck even more pigment from Dean's skin. His big brother looked almost spectral, translucent and gaunt. And hurt.

Sam caught his breath at the sight, his brief absence having made his brother's appearance even more alarming. Just days ago Dean had been brimming with energy and vitality; tunelessly bellowing out REO Speedwagon, heartily guffawing at Sam's pouting disapproval and jauntily tapping out a beat on the Impala's steering wheel with his fingertips. Those creatures had leeched the life out of him, had taken everything that made him _Dean_. Everything that made him Sam's brother. The younger Winchester straightened his lips and nodded to himself. It was time to get his big brother back.

Sam had been about to reach out a hand to brush light fingers through his brother's hair, running his eyes curiously over the curved line of archaic looking symbols that Bobby had inked across Dean's temple using the blood, herbs and mashed up animal entrails he'd picked up earlier, when Bobby's voice halted his motion. "Don't you go messin' up my paint job now, boy!" Sam instantly retracted his hand, feeling like a small child who'd been caught doing something naughty. He swivelled his head towards the older man, who was standing over by the kitchenette clutching a crumpled bundle of parchments. Allowing his gaze to drift past Bobby's tense figure, Sam could see that the counter-top was smeared with dried patches of maroon blood and cluttered with nasty looking objects that the younger Winchester would probably have been able to identify quite easily if he'd had either the time or the inclination. Bobby had clearly been cooking up one hell of a storm in the kitchen, and Sam sensibly decided that he could manage without a closer look. Twisting further, the young hunter could see Fiona hovering awkwardly by the paper-strewn table, nervously switching her gaze from the discarded gore on the kitchenette counter to the large, pewter bowl that sat at the table centre.

The younger Winchester bit back a jibe in response to Bobby's acerbic admonishment, the light-hearted retort dying on his lips the instant his eyes landed back on his brother. Sam fussed for a moment, straightening the bed covers that were still pulled up underneath Dean's chin and giving the older man a soft pat on the shoulder before he felt satisfied that his brother was as comfortable as he was going to get. He pushed up from the bed and trudged across the carpet to stand opposite his surrogate uncle, feeling his exhausted body sag with every step. "Alright..." he began, glancing from Bobby to Fiona and noticing that they were still eyeing each other warily. He hadn't stopped to introduce them after he'd caught sight of his brother, had forgotten they were even there, but he'd nevertheless heard muted murmurs while he'd been tending to Dean. It looked like neither was happy to make the other's acquaintance. Not that Sam gave a damn about that; he hadn't time to hold hands and arrange play-dates. "Let's do this."

Bobby nodded briskly at him before perching the stack of vellum papers atop the already groaning table surface and picking up a paper bag from the counter behind him. "Here," he said, passing the bag to Sam, who warily accepted it with careful fingers as he avoided the obvious blood spatters staining the sides. "This is for the circle, should keep the Maniae right where we want 'em." The younger Winchester weighed the bag gently in his his palm. He didn't know exactly what Bobby had put in there beyond rock-salt and an assortment of herbs, but he had complete faith in the older man's talent for spell-work. "As soon as we know that they're all _in_ Dean, that's when you make the circle. They won't be able to cross it," he paused, glancing over at Dean as he rubbed at the lengthening bristles on his chin, "we'll need to pull the bed out from the wall so's we don't break the line."

Sam nodded in acknowledgement, already visualising what he needed to do.

"There's just one more thing we need," Bobby coughed away what sounded like a golf ball of phlegm and glanced uncomfortably at Fiona, who was still hunched and rigid by the table, looking as if she didn't know what to do with herself. Sam caught his old friend's meaning instantly, and decided to save his old friend the foot-shuffling, nose-scratching, throat-clearing awkwardness.

"Fiona?" Sam coaxed softly, watching as she seemed to come to with a snap, as if stirring from a waking stupor. "Remember what I said about what we needed you–?" He continued, stopping short when the older woman interrupted with a chin-jutting nod.

"My blood," she recalled, taking in a shaky breath before rolling up the sleeve of her blouse with matter of fact calm. Sam raised his eyebrows at Bobby, receiving an answering expression of grudging respect in return. The older woman barely twitched when Sam approached gingerly with a small penknife, the young hunter making every movement as slow and obvious as possible, as if he were dealing with an untamed horse that might rear and bolt at the hint of a sudden movement. Following Bobby's direction, Sam gently held Fiona's arm over the pewter bowl, and they all watched with almost hypnotic compulsion as her blood trickled downwards with squelchy drips to blend with the viscous, glutinous mixture that Bobby had made earlier. The concoction had a cloudy, rotten stench to it that seemed to roll from the shallow vessel in a swirling mist, thickening the air and turning it also a muddy, syrupy consistency. The elder hunter then moved to stand in front of Fiona, taking a brief, wordless second to ask for permission before dipping his thumb into the bowl and beginning to smear her forehead with a different set of symbols that Sam didn't recognise. Quite how Bobby managed to remember so many symbols and patterns, not to mention when they should be used and why, Sam didn't know. But he was mighty glad of it.

Fiona closed her eyes in faint disgust, but endured the treatment stoically, her lips thin and pale. The woman's eyelids fluttered open with obvious relief when Bobby stepped back, her pupils darting upwards as if she hoped to see what the elder hunter had drawn there. "So what now?" She asked in an admirably steady voice, though Sam could see how much effort it took.

Bobby brandished the bowl once more with a nonchalant shrug. "Now I gotta go give Dean some more body art." For all his old friend's posturing, Sam could see the lines of tension that darkened the older man's features, could see the swirling undercurrent of anxiety underneath the surface of his calm gaze. Bobby was struggling, but only someone who knew him as well as Sam did would ever have noticed.

The younger Winchester tensed as he watched his old friend lower himself onto the edge of Dean's bed, feeling absurdly over-protective as Bobby pulled his brother's bedcovers down to his middle and began smearing Dean's already bruised and battered skin with swift, smooth movements. But the elder Winchester remained oblivious to what was being done to him, as relaxed and passive in his unconsciousness as ever. Sam bit his lip fretfully; he knew Bobby was being as gentle as he could, but the younger man still itched to rip the bowl from his friend's hands and take over. He didn't fully trust Dean's care to anyone else, even Bobby.

"Why is he doing that?" Sam jumped slightly when he heard Fiona's soft whisper, elbows and knees flapping like an ungainly giraffe, and he realised belatedly that she had moved so close that she was practically treading on his toes.

"Uh..." Sam began hesitantly, unsure about how much he should say and still cripplingly distracted by the need to watch over his brother. Not once removing his eyes from Dean, he answered her out of the corner of his mouth. "We need to create a link between you and Dean, so that when you do the banishing spell–"

"Wait a minute..._I_ do the banishing spell?" Sam quelled a reflexive wince as Fiona's voice practically shrieked in consternation, and he finally dragged his eyes from his big brother to perform damage limitation.

"All you need to do is read out a command which will cast out the Maniae," Sam explained, realising that he would have to elaborate further when he saw a great bubble of fear popping in her eyes. "It has to be you Fiona. You were the one who summoned them, and you're the only one who can send them away." The younger man watched as a flurry of emotions blew across her features, saw them settle like falling leaves.

"I'll do it," she said with a grim smile before lowering her eyes shamefully. "Maybe I can find some way of redeeming myself for what I did to Jennifer and the others."

Sam opened his mouth to respond, not sure whether he was aiming for comfort or pragmatism when his eye was abruptly drawn by the flash of a blade. He let out an involuntary noise of protest at the back of his throat as Bobby flicked open a clean penknife and began lowering it towards one of Dean's slack forearms. "Don't get all hysterical, boy. I ain't got no smelling salts lyin' around. You know we need some of your brother's blood for this too." The veteran hunter scolded without bite, beginning to draw the blade lightly across Dean's skin as he murmured a low incantation that Sam couldn't quite make out.

"Doesn't mean I have to like it," the younger man muttered under his breath, clenching his jaw from the effort of not intervening when Dean let out a small groan of pain. Seeing his big brother hurt, no matter how small or insignificant the wound, was never going to be something Sam was comfortable with. A feeling which had only intensified after he'd watched his brother flatline just a few months earlier. Shooting a glance at Fiona, and suddenly uneasy at the thought that she was seeing Dean at his most vulnerable, Sam quickly snared her attention and directed her towards the table, handing her the parchment containing her lines. She took it from him with a faint sniff, as if he'd just handed her something revolting and odorous, and nervously began perusing its contents. By the time Sam had turned back to his brother, Bobby had completed the blood ritual and had shifted Dean's bed a short distance from the wall.

"We ready?" Sam called tensely as he picked up the bag of salt and herbs.

Bobby returned the pewter bowl to the table, clearing away the papers with an impatient sweep of his arm and pulling out a small nub of chalk. "We're ready," he confirmed distractedly as he began marking out a series of interconnecting circles, vectors and curved flicks that all emanated from the bowl's central position, as if they were a galaxy of planets and stars clustering around a sun. As he worked, the older man outlined each of their roles once more, making sure each person knew their part. One false move would ruin it all, along with their only chance of saving Dean.

When both Sam and Fiona had indicated their readiness, the latter with a frail, wispy nod that wasn't convincing in the slightest, Bobby stepped up to the bowl, fist held high, and began reciting. His words seemed to boom out in the deathly hush that had blanketed the room, rough and commanding as he intoned. He opened his fist with aching slowness, and Sam stared, transfixed, as a shower of crushed herbs and bones sprinkled down into the bowl. The younger Winchester flinched at the sudden memory of standing by Jess' grave, tears rampaging down his cheeks as he trickled a handful of soil down onto her coffin. It was an image he didn't want, an implication he wouldn't even entertain.

He wasn't losing Dean today.

They all startled as the lights suddenly blew out; Fiona squeaking in shock while the two hunters exchanged loaded looks. Unperturbed, Bobby continued to read, his voice seeming to take on a more eerie quality in the stifling gloom. Though sunlight still blazed outside, they'd made sure to shut the curtains to avoid prying eyes, but the effect felt unnatural and sickly.

Sam jerked his head to the side as a skittering shadow flickered past in his periphery, seeing nothing but the dimmed swirls of the motel wallpaper when he bobbed and pivoted his head to look more closely. He heard Fiona gasp sharply and whirled to see tiny shards of darkness cavorting across the ceiling, gyrating and scampering in boisterous, chaotic clusters. His eyes widened as the shadowy shapes seemed to lap the room and he ducked reflexively as he felt the air above his head stir and crackle at their passage. Chatters and whispers filled the room, echoing sibilantly; sighing and hissing and giggling and jabbering. Bobby kept his voice steady as he continued the incantation, though his eyes darted and veered as they followed the tenebrous creatures. The sound seemed to build in intensity, fizzing and twittering and thundering until Sam had to fight against the urge to put his hands over his ears.

And then Bobby uttered the final word and silence exploded.

The three of them looked at each other cautiously, each with held breaths. Sam couldn't sense the presence he'd felt just moments before; the room was still, calm and tranquil. But the younger Winchester didn't know if they'd hit the eye of the storm, or whether the abrupt quietude meant the culmination of his fear. Whether it meant that the spell hadn't worked.

He'd been about to demand an answer from Bobby when he heard it; a low, frantic gurgling sound. Almost rigid with a sudden, terrible dread as his stomach began to convulse, Sam turned to face his brother. And gasped in horror.

Dean's eyes were bulging and rolling, glowing with an almost radiant whiteness in the room's dimness as his head flailed from side to side so quickly that his features were nothing but a fuzzy blur of movement. His jaw was clenched and strained, bubbles of foam flying wildly from his cheeks as they collected and oozed at the corners of his mouth, the tendons on his neck as solid and brittle as bones as they stretched and tautened. The bed shook from the force of his seizure, the bedcovers instantly flying off as Dean's limbs thrashed and contorted. Sam's eyes widened as his brother's back arched brutally from the bed, feeling his insides shrivel painfully as he agonised over the damage being done to Dean's already injured ribs.

Sam didn't think he'd ever had to fight so hard for command over his own body, the urge to go to Dean almost overriding his manual controls. "Bobby?" He sent the older hunter a frantic SOS.

"They're fightin' their quarantine," his friend shot back, "that means they're definitely in 'im. We need that circle right now!"

Sam didn't need to be told twice. He flew to his brother, feet barely skimming the carpet bristles as he skidded to a graceless halt beside the quaking bed. Closer now, he could see even more clearly the grotesque shapes Dean's body was making, the twisting and writhing and quivering. He gulped down the instinctive bile that leapt to the back of his throat as he tried to prise his gaze back to the bag in his hand. Hastily he began pouring out a circle, breaths harsh and spiky as he heard Dean's movements become more frenetic with each granule he laid down. The Maniae were railing against their growing confinement, taking out their frustration on the vessel that held them. _Hang on, Dean_, Sam growled fiercely to himself as he swept round behind the bed.

"Fiona, you need to get in the circle, and fast!" Sam heard Bobby call out in the background, but the sound seemed disconnected and distant beneath the agonising noises his brother was making in his distress.

Sam drew the circle to a close as Fiona stepped inside, knees knocking and buckling like a newborn foal. The parchment in her hand was crumpled in one claw-like fist, her knuckles bony and jagged and pale. Her features seemed enlarged and out of proportion as she looked at Sam in terror. He could only stare back, urging her wordlessly to do her part and save his brother. Her bottom lip spasmed as she looked at the incantation, the parchment shaking too violently in her nervousness for her to read clearly. As Dean moaned desperately on the bed below, she seemed to master herself, the sight of his suffering seeming to harden her resolve. She began to read.

"_I sum in rector de insania, te sunt exsules ad mea ordinem,_" her voice was flimsy and insubstantial as she tried to recite words that were clearly unfamiliar to her. But though the pronunciation was sloppy and inept, their meaning rang true. She continued onwards, stumbling over both the mouthful of words and the shallow lungfuls of air she could barely drag into her visibly heaving chest.

Sam nodded encouragingly as she glanced cluelessly up at him. And then she folded with a gut-wrenching sob of agony.

"Fiona?" The younger Winchester yelled frantically, looking on in horror as she cried out and clutched her palms to her head, the veins on the back of her hands bulging at the pressure. The parchment floated to the ground in a scraggy scrunch as her voice gave out, her mouth stretched wide and silent as the pain seemed to rob her of sound. Her breath wheezed as she crushed her eyelids closed. "Fiona?" He called again when she looked lost in it, consumed by the torment that the Maniae were clearly putting her under. The younger Winchester desperately met Bobby's gaze, but the elder hunter looked just as helpless.

In the end though, it was Dean who pulled her back. He let out a hitched cry, one swinging arm plummeting downwards as his clenched fist caught the edge of Fiona's thigh. Her head shot up in surprise, and her eyes boggled as she seemed to notice him again. Time hung in the air, suspended as something hardened and settled in the woman's features. Her eyes swung from Dean to Sam, and she nodded at him, resolutely, finally. And then Sam got it.

She knew she was going to die. And she'd made her peace with it.

Fiona's skin had greyed and roughened, her eyes sinking deeper into the haunting hollows of their sockets. The pain was clawing at her, and Sam could see it, but she bent with deliberate precision this time and snatched up the fallen parchment. Her arms were jerking, her stance whipping back and forth as if she were being gusted by hurricane winds, but she lifted the wrinkled vellum closer to her face, a low, keening moan escaping despite her obvious intention to remain controlled. The older woman looked down at Dean, the webbed lines around her eyes softening, and she read the final line, a ringing reaffirmation of the first.

"_I sum in rector de insania, te sunt exsules ad mea ordinem._"

She collapsed as the air left her, hitting the floor with a lumpy thud. And there she stayed.

Sam's eyes immediately landed on Dean, his lungs protesting painfully as he carelessly denied them oxygen. The elder Winchester was silent and still, limbs splayed on the bed, face turned away.

And there he stayed.

o0o0o

_Yeah, you knew I wouldn't be able to hold off on a cliffhanger for long, right? The next chapter will be one or two days late I'm afraid, as I'm going away for the weekend. I'll try and post on Monday but we'll see how it goes._

_Oh, and apologies for the web-translated Latin. Hope any Latin buffs will forgive me any inaccuracies! ;) _


	17. Still Life

As always, thanks so much to everyone who has shown their support for this story by generously taking the time to review, and by adding it to their alerts and favourites. I cannot express how much I appreciate it.

My sincerest gratitude goes also to my good pal Sharlot who has given so much of her time and effort to work her beta magic over this chapter. She has just finished posting her amazing story _Dust Devils_, so if you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, I highly recommend it!

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 17 – Still Life**

There was a ringing gong of silence that droned pulsatively in Sam's ear before his body finally thawed from the glacial terror that had frosted over brain and heart. It was as if his brother's light had gone out the instant the Maniae had departed, leaving Sam's universe barren and empty and cold. There was pain when Sam's heart kicked back into gear, stiff and frostbitten. His limbs tingled from adrenaline and returning sensation, pins and needles unacceptably slowing him down as he rushed to his brother's side. Dean was contorted on the bed, his injured wrist thrown high above his head while the other arm tumbled across his midriff; a fact that sent Sam's concern shooting sky high as he fretted over his brother's injured ribs. Dean's legs were still tangled in the bedcovers, the quilt mangled and wrung tight, twisted into helix ropes that held them prisoner. The elder Winchester's bare torso was like a weather chart of swirling, stormy bruises and isobar slashes as Sam rounded the bed, and the younger Winchester could detect no movement. Dean's chest appeared still.

In the blur of peripheral vision, Sam became vaguely aware that Bobby was moving to Fiona's sprawled body, could faintly hear the older man urgently call her name as he bent down to check her pulse. But the younger Winchester's attention was all for his big brother as he dropped to his knees beside Dean's bed, feeling the wiry bristles digging into him from the sisal carpet underneath as he landed with a jar that swept the length of his spine like a line of jagged dominoes. He reached towards his brother, jerking his hands hesitantly back and forth in the air above Dean's twisted form as he panicked, almost afraid to touch, to end his world.

Dean's neck looked painfully wrenched against the lumpy, lacklustre pillow, his face now turned towards Sam after the younger Winchester's change in position. He looked insubstantial, as if he was gradually fading out on a television screen. As if he wasn't all there. His cheeks seemed hollow and skeletal, his eyelids slack, his loosened lips falling slightly open. There was no muscular tension in limbs or features to let his little brother know that there was any life in there to keep them that way. There was a peacefulness about Dean in that moment, despite the suffering he'd endured during the convulsions, his unconsciousness looking more like the repose of the smoothly departed rather than the suspended animation of one who'd suffered a violent death. Sam felt his throat close over with an unbearable agony, and he angrily banished the traitorous thought. Dean wasn't dead! He _wasn't_.

Despite the crisis he was in the middle of, Sam couldn't help but think that his brother was only ever allowed such a peaceful reprieve when he was unconscious. Why did Sam have to be the one to drag Dean back to the painfulness of his own existence? Because...because he was selfish, and he knew it. Dean wasn't allowed to leave him, would _never _beallowed to leave him. Not like Sam had left _him_ so many times before. And he'd never regretted that more than he did right then.

Everything that had tipped forth from his brother's uncensored lips over the past few days had given Sam a chilling glimpse into the depths of the emotional baggage that Dean was carrying, had _been_ carrying for too damn long. And though the younger Winchester had guessed at some of it, had made calculated estimates, he had never even been close. And the truth of it had shocked him more devastatingly than even the Big Secret had. More so because Sam knew that these were wounds and fears and vulnerabilities that Dean probably hadn't even admitted to himself, let alone his little brother; that would utterly humiliate Dean if he ever found out. The younger man knew now just how much his vanishing act had hurt Dean, and the thought that he might lose his big brother before he had the chance to make up for it seared him to the core. Dean had to be okay, he just had to be.

Biting down on his lip hard enough to break the skin, Sam shook off his paralysing fear, suddenly desperate where seconds earlier he'd been reticent. He grabbed wildly at Dean's uninjured wrist as if it were a lifeline; in many ways it was. His breaths came in tight, shivery pants as his fingers roved the veins on the inside of Dean's wrist, panic rising at each successive second he failed to detect a rippling thrum. "C'mon!" He hissed in guttural terror, a sharp pain hitting him square in the chest and shooting outwards to fill each corner of his body as if being refracted agonisingly through his heart. It was breaking. _He_ was breaking, shattering into tiny pieces.

And then Sam felt it; anaemic and listless. But it was there. It was _there_.

For the briefest of moments, the younger Winchester wondered if his fevered mind had merely fabricated it all, if it had with protective intent given him exactly what he wanted. But the stringy beat continued unabated, Sam believing it more with every passing second. His heart seemed to bloom, hope and relief and yearning and love opening out into his soul like petals, soothing away the burning agony from before.

Time floated above him, around him, past him, but he was in a bubble. With Dean. The two of them the only people in existence.

And then the bubble popped, Sam abruptly realising where he was, what had happened and that he really ought to be _doing_ something. Recovering his composure, the younger Winchester hovered a more businesslike hand underneath his brother's nose and mouth, easily feeling the breaths now that his panic-veiled eyes had missed earlier. The confirming huff he let out was an incoherent half-sob, half-laugh, lips bursting into a blazing smile as he ducked his head in relief. He was alive. Dean was really alive! He kept his fingers wrapped around his brother's wrist, exalting in the feeling of Dean's pulse beating against them. After days of all-encompassing anxiety, an exhausting fear that had seeped into every pore of his being; after hours of hyper, coursing terror, the Maniae were finally gone, and Dean had survived.

"Dean?" The younger Winchester coaxed softly, gently rearranging Dean's injured arm into a more comfortable position by his side and giving his brother's shoulder a restrained pat. But apart from a minute lolling of his heavy head, unconsciousness continued to hold Dean firmly beneath the surface. Whether within grasping distance or many fathoms deep Sam didn't know, had no way of telling. "Dean?" Didn't mean he wasn't going to try. He moved a giant paw to the side of his brother's bruised cheek and gave it the lightest of taps, not wanting to do anything that might hurt him further. But again Dean's skull pliantly moved in whatever direction it was prodded with neither resistance nor response. Sam shifted his palm to the older man's forehead, the calm coolness settled there satisfying him that no fever was dragging his brother more deeply under. Then he pressed tentative fingers across his brother's abdomen, reassured both by the feel of Dean's ribs and the smoothness of the older man's breaths that his brother's lungs were intact

The younger Winchester sat back on his haunches, still maintaining a possessive hold over Dean's wrist, and assessed his brother's condition. They couldn't take Dean to a hospital, it was too soon after Baltimore, not to mention the fact that Sam wasn't sure exactly how he'd explain the origin of his big brother's injuries. Seizure brought on by a banishing spell? Supernatural dementia? He straightened his lips grimly as he eyed Dean's many bruises, the external wounds he could explain just fine, but then they weren't the real problem.

Sam shifted position, reaching the for the bed covers that still restrained Dean's legs and carefully unwinding and removing them, wincing at the stark red indents that marked the skin on his brother's calves.

No, they couldn't get Dean proper medical help, so he and Bobby would just have to pool their – not inconsiderable – collective expertise. Nevertheless, it wasn't the first time Sam had wished for normality, for a life that didn't preclude professional treatment for life-threatening injuries. He scanned Dean's features once more, searching for anything he'd missed, but the elder Winchester was blank and still. Maybe he really was just sleeping it off, and maybe Sam would just have to accept the fact that he wouldn't be able to gauge the extent of the damage until Dean woke up. If he...But no, Sam wasn't going there. Dean was going to wake up. He would just have to be patient. Trying not to be disheartened, or worried, Sam focussed on what he _did_ have: Dean actually alive and seemingly free of the creatures that had slowly been killing him for several tortuous days. And that counted for a hell of a lot.

"Sam?" Bobby's voice was smoky with gruff emotion as it floated across to the younger Winchester, a barely hidden flame of frantic concern crackling and snapping beneath the surface.

Sam raised his forehead from where he had briefly rested it atop the hand he still had clasped around Dean's wrist to seek out his old friend. Bobby was still kneeling next to the downed woman, one hand braced against the ground in a tripod of fingers. He stared gravely at Sam, eyes voicing the question his mouth couldn't seem to. The younger Winchester could only nod back, throat too choked and numb from a relief that fear's noose still hadn't let go of. His brother might have been alive, but he hadn't left the woods behind yet. Dean was still lost in a dark, shadowy forest of unconsciousness, and Sam didn't know if his brother's mind even had the compass to guide him back out again.

Bobby sighed shallowly, features softening just subtly enough for Sam to recognise that his old friend had understood. "She's dead," he deflected on a huffed breath, with a regretful nod at Fiona, pushing to his feet with a groan of exhausted exertion.

Sam felt the proof of Dean's life insistently prodding at his fingertips as he cast his gaze over Fiona's body. Her eyes were glassy and staring, fixed hauntingly on a point she would never again see. The chaotic position of her arms and legs on the carpet spoke of violence and wrongness, of tumultuous waters and wrecked ships, but her face was a still, tranquil pool. She had accepted her fate; Sam had seen it when she'd looked at Dean, when she'd turned to look at _him_ with an almost majestic grace, a nobility of sacrifice. But as the young hunter rested his gaze on her almost imperceptibly upturned lips, he found that he couldn't be truly sorry. Not with the confirmation of his brother's survival right there in front of him. "But Dean's not," he murmured in return, watching the gentle rise and fall of his brother's chest, easily visible now to his composed eyes when they hadn't been to his hysterical ones.

He let his gaze float around the room, surveying the disarray that had settled there after the Maniae had been banished. It was a mess; papers scattered over the carpet like giant snowflakes, the deformed circle of salt and herbs scuffed and dispersed across the whole room, the pewter bowl upturned, contents oozing sloppily over the table surface and onto the carpet. It was as if a twister had blown through the room. Which made no sense at all, because Sam couldn't remember any raging winds, or flashing lights or...or anything except Dean convulsing on the bed, except Fiona turning to look at him with that knowing acceptance.

Damn. An elephant could have crashed through the room and he wouldn't have noticed, he realised as his eyebrows peaked in surprise.

"How's he doin'?" Bobby cut through Sam's faintly epiphanous thoughts with a brusque pragmatism that in no way diminished the latent worry that still misted over his eyes, and the younger Winchester realised that his old friend had come to a stop at the end of Dean's bed. Sam scanned Bobby's expression as the older man did a visual sweep. The veteran hunter had a poker face that could have rivalled a stone statue, but the younger Winchester's keen eyes didn't miss the moment that the skin tightened minutely around Bobby's mouth, didn't overlook the way his Adam's apple wobbled thickly in his throat. But the older man said nothing.

"I don't know," Sam admitted anxiously, running an admirably steady hand through his brother's sweat dampened hair. "But he's alive. And right now, I'll take what I can get." He looked up at Bobby once more, seeing wholehearted agreement reflected in his friend's gaze. They stood like that for a moment, acknowledging the close call, acknowledging their relief. Their eyes connected and locked for a timeless moment, unvoiced emotions passing between them with an electrical current that seemed to ripple the air before Bobby signalled a change of pace with a clearing of his throat.

"We got one heck of a mess to clean up here, Sam," he said, gesturing at the chaotic room with a sweep of his arm. When the younger Winchester merely stared helplessly back at him, he pursed his lips in frustration and fiddled agitatedly with his cap. "We got a dead body, blood everywhere...We're gonna have to get the hell outta here. We can't stay."

Sam's brows were a pyramid on his forehead as he pondered the elder hunter's words. Reluctantly, he released his hold on Dean's wrist and pushed to his feet. He really didn't want to move his brother, was faintly nauseous at the thought of having to carry Dean from bed to car with his ribs in the state they were, but Bobby was right, and Sam knew it. For all they knew, noise from the spell might have carried through to the surrounding rooms. The police might have already been called. God, if they found Fiona's body...Sam tensed, shooting a glance at the door, half-expecting a barrage of knocks at any second. A dead body. A dead _human_ body...A dead human body in a motel room in the middle of a bustling city in broad daylight...

Sam could hear pounding in his ears, but it was coming from his own dread-filled heart. What the hell were they going to do with her? Dean was already wanted for murder, they couldn't afford any more dead bodies to their name, and removing themselves from the motel room without trace was neither realistic nor feasible. He swung his eyes back to Bobby, attempting to bewitch him with the hypnotic, doe-eyed plea that he'd been using to make his big brother to do his bidding since time immemorial. The only person who'd managed even a partial immunity to it had been John Winchester.

Bobby lasted ten seconds.

He scrubbed a hand across his face, tugging at the skin on his cheeks so that his features looked stretched and distorted. "Alright, alright," Bobby sighed in exasperation, looking for all the world like an indulgent father whose child had just begged for the most expensive toy in the store. "I'll take care of it. But we're gonna need to wait 'til nightfall; don't want nobody catchin' an eyeful of sleeping beauty over there," he continued, nodding at Dean. "Or her."

Sam jerked his eyes from where they had been roving on autopilot, absently tracing a pattern on the motel wallpaper and fixed them concernedly on his old friend. The darkness in Bobby's tone had him immediately on edge, and he realised, for the first time it seemed, just how much he was asking. Suddenly he wanted to apologise, to slink away like a chastised child, but Bobby had battened down the hatches and Sam understood that the time wasn't right. There would be ample opportunity to bang the condemning gavel down on himself over what he'd dragged both his brother and his friend into when they were safely set up in another motel.

Frightened to speak, he merely nodded, lips sealed tight.

Bobby strode to the window and carefully peeled back the curtain. Light flooded in even from the small gap he'd made, afternoon sunshine turning a stark spotlight on the room. Sam felt himself recoil slightly, the brightness illuminating more than just the physical. What they'd had to do...all of a sudden it felt more real, more raw. He had his brother back, and nothing would ever make him regret that, but he'd killed Fiona Adams as truly as if he'd pierced her heart with a dagger. She'd been a murderer, but one Sam couldn't bring himself to judge too harshly. She looked almost ethereal as Sam stared at her, a pale glow seeming to hover around her even after Bobby had replaced the curtain. Ashamed, the younger Winchester moved to the empty bed and began gathering up the quilt. Bending down beside her, he laid it carefully over her body, trying to give her what respect he could. Yes, she'd killed, but she'd willingly sacrificed her life for Dean's. And that was enough in Sam's eyes.

Biting his lip, he straightened the quilt and clambered to his feet. Bobby was still standing by the window, watching him in silence, his expression inscrutable. The younger man ducked his head briefly, acknowledging the scrutiny before turning towards the bathroom. Sam hadn't forgotten the bloody markings Bobby had painted on Dean's skin, and the younger Winchester didn't like the thought of his brother continuing to lie there with them scrawled grotesquely across his body.

Hastily grabbing one of the few remaining clean washcloths, he ran it under the hot water until it was a tepid, comfortable temperature. He chanced a glance at himself in the mirror as he reached to turn off the faucet and immediately wished he hadn't. The sight of his pinched, exhausted features was enough to bring the fatigue crashing back down upon him, shoulders and knees almost buckling under its lead weight. He grabbed at the sink as a dizzying vertigo hit him and he hung his head, taking deep, steadying breaths as his vision began to cluster and pop with black spots. Sleep seemed a long, long time ago and his body was protesting its absence vociferously. But Dean needed him, he couldn't afford to succumb until he knew his brother was going to be okay.

"Sam, son, let me." When had Bobby gotten so close? The locker-sized bathroom was practically bursting at the seams as the older man leaned past Sam to reach for the washcloth. Sam blinked, consciousness staggering around in a daze as he registered what his friend's intention was.

"No, no, I got it," Sam insisted with a vigorous shake of his head. Never mind that his brain felt as if it had grown a layer of furry mould, he was damned if he was going to let anyone else take care of his brother.

"Sam, a friggin' breeze could knock you on your ass right now. Sit down before you _fall_ down." Bobby's voice was kindness, amusement, exasperation and concern all rolled into one rough-hewn package.

"No," Sam shook his head again, obstinately ignoring the fact that the movement nearly sent him nosediving. He clutched the cloth tighter and pushed past his surrogate uncle, who mercifully stepped back to allow him passage. Sam wasn't above admitting to himself that Bobby could probably have restrained him with nothing more than the tip of his index finger. Nevertheless, he felt the older man's eyes sticking to him like glue as he weaved his way back to Dean.

Easing himself down onto the edge of Dean's bed, and trying to pretend that gravity hadn't suddenly become more fluid and insubstantial, he leaned over his brother, searching for the tiniest hint that the elder Winchester might be embarking on his return journey to wakefulness. But Dean could be pretty friggin' stubborn when he wanted to be, and in this one he was not to be budged. With a small sigh, Sam began wiping away the symbols on Dean's forehead with painstaking movements.

When the tears finally came, he didn't make a sound. Didn't even break his rhythm.

o0o0o

At least the wallpaper didn't make him feel like he was tripping on some sort of psychedelic hallucinogen, but that was where the room's superiority ended. There were half-moons of wheat-coloured yellow and smoky brown, interspersed with sickle-shaped whites barely lit by pallid lights that struggled to shine past the brown shades that shielded them. The room had a stuffy, faded air to it, and the whole combination reminded Sam of the dreadful, circa-1950s dressing gown owned by the old spinster who'd lived next door to the apartment he and Jess had shared back in Stanford. She'd always smelled of stale cigarettes and sherry, and had seemed to find any excuse to come knocking at their door to complain. Too noisy. Too _quiet_. Arriving home too late at night. Leaving home too early in the morning. Once Sam had needed to forcibly restrain his girlfriend to stop Jess from marching next door and letting fly with her little fists. The memory brought a pained smile to his lips, as reminders of Jess often did.

The motel room seemed smaller than the one they'd vacated just a few hours ago, though it had cost almost double the price. But Sam, apart from the tiniest of obligatory winces as he'd handed over one of their few remaining credit cards, had been far too eager to get back to the Impala, and his brother to care much beyond affecting a token huff. Though he'd left Dean in Bobby's more than capable hands while he'd booked the room, the younger Winchester hadn't wanted to let his brother out of his sight for more than a few minutes. As if Dean might somehow vanish into thin air during his absence. Right, like that hadn't already happened. Twice.

The teenager manning the front desk, clearly stoned and so chilled out he was practically floating had nodded languidly at him with a goofy chuckle, before proceeding to take an infuriatingly long time to process the payment. Sam had tapped the toe of his boot impatiently on the linoleum floor while the hands on the clock hanging behind the desk whirled and spun, the sun rose and fell, seasons passed by. Aeons later the younger Winchester had been handed a spindly key that looked as if it would snap like a twig if he applied the slightest pressure and had been sent on his way, or rather, waved on his way with a wispy hand.

Sam had requested the room farthest from the main reception, mumbling something about needing peace and quiet, though he needn't have bothered; the wafting teen had merely bobbed his head to a silent tune, all but ignoring the young hunter's presence. They'd have no problems here, Sam was sure of it. He doubted the kid would even remember him.

Hurrying back to the Impala – his irrational, jittery fear quickening his footsteps – he'd whooshed out a relieved breath at the sight of his brother; still safe, and still exactly where Sam had left him. They'd laid the elder Winchester out on the back seat of the Impala, an unpleasant undertaking that the younger man would gladly have permanently erased from his memory if he could have. It would certainly have made the thought of getting Dean back out of the car seem far less daunting.

In their dash from the previous motel, he and Bobby had carried Dean out by the underarms and feet, shuffling and lurching under the weight of their burden as they'd tried to marry speed with gentleness. Sam wasn't sure how well they'd managed that, but his big brother had been as limp and lifeless as ever, and no protest nor groan of pain had passed his slack lips. Even with the Chevy drawn up as closely as they could manoeuvre her, the distance had still seemed to stretch further with every step. Sam had fretted the whole way, nearly overbalancing several times as he shot his gaze back and forth in a rally between Dean and the hastily mapped out route behind him. Getting the elder Winchester settled in the back seat had been a precision, military-style operation that had nevertheless involved Sam banging a shin, Bobby nearly jamming a finger in the door and Dean nearly slithering into the footwell. Eventually though, they had managed it. And, after covering his oblivious big brother with the warmest – and least scratchy – blanket he could find in the trunk, Sam had started the engine and eased away from the kerb. He'd driven with meticulous care, not wanting to risk the possibility of his unsecured brother sliding around on the back seat. The Impala seemed to sense the need for caution, her engine hushed and docile as she glided smoothly to Sam's command.

The younger Winchester had chosen a motel on the other side of the city, waving their normal financial rules in favour of one that he'd hoped would be more comfortable for his recovering brother. He'd have gone five star if he could have, but even fraudulent credit only stretched so far. Bobby had followed behind them in his truck so that he could help with the second leg of Dean's journey and still return to finish the clean up later. Sam had been so grateful that he hadn't even been able to form words, lips fluttering and arms flapping as he'd earnestly tried to thank the older man. Bobby had merely brushed him off with gruff annoyance – as if his young friend was questioning his helpful intent by trying to show his appreciation – and Sam decided that it was probably for the best. Dean and their surrogate uncle had always had a similarly poor tolerance for genuine gratitude of any kind.

After the younger Winchester had paid for the room, he and Bobby had looked at each other with a mutual solidarity of dread as they'd arranged themselves on either side of the car. Dean had offered no help whatsoever as they'd shifted him inch by inch from the back seat. The elder Winchester had seemed heavier the second time around, and Sam hadn't been able to figure out exactly why until he'd nearly driven them all to the ground with a spectacular, show-stopping stumble. He'd been exhausted...hell, he was _still_ exhausted. What little energy that had remained however, he had at least been able to use to keep Dean raised in his arms while his own knees hit the gravelled ground with an eye-watering thud. He'd felt the denim tear in several places and had mourned the loss of yet another pair of jeans even as he'd acknowledged to himself that the alternative would have been unacceptable. Even jostling Dean as much as he had done had been intolerable.

Sam and Bobby had both puffed out a faintly shell-shocked breath when they'd eventually gotten the elder Winchester settled on his new bed, as if they couldn't quite believe what they'd just accomplished. As if they were standing on the peak of a treacherous summit surveying the impossible distance they'd just traversed. Once more, Sam had insisted upon settling Dean on the farthest bed. The younger man had felt much happier knowing that with a wall on one side, and _Sam_ on the other, Dean wouldn't be going anywhere without his little brother knowing about it. That was if he woke up at all. Which he would. He just would.

Though he had moved not even a muscle, Dean had still looked more snug and contented somehow as Sam had carefully tucked him in, pulling the bedcovers up to Dean's chin and smoothing them carefully. The action had catapulted him back many years, memories of the many nights Dean had done the same for him swirling around him in a comforting fog of nostalgia. Taking care of his little brother was one of the few things Dean Winchester had truly taken seriously in his life, gladly accepting the lifelong duty at the tender age of four. The thought had still pained Sam even as it warmed him. If he hadn't appreciated how lucky he'd been to have Dean in his life before, he surely had then as he'd perched himself on the edge of the bed, laying a gentle hand down on one of his brother's limp ones. It was his turn to take care of Dean, and he wasn't about to forget that anymore. Being brothers was not a one way street.

The bruises on Dean's face were still stark and angry-looking, though their colour had begun to fade from a deep, violent purple to a more nauseating stew of yellow-green blotches. His pale complexion had been steadily growing in warmth and tone over the past few hours, fuelling Sam's hope and beginning to dampen the worst of his concern. His big brother still looked battered and bruised and hurt, but the grave, ghostly aura that had surrounded him had now all but dissipated.

After a yawning, sagging Bobby had departed to take care of Fiona's body, not to mention the catastrophic mess they'd left behind, Sam had taken up his vigil beside Dean's bed, straight-backed and alert. He'd frowned to himself after Bobby had softly closed the door, unhappy with the situation but knowing he was where he needed to be. Guilt for what he'd put Bobby through could friggin' go and get in line; Sam wouldn't be entertaining guests until he was certain his big brother was okay. The younger man had initially settled himself in the space between the two beds, a paw laid across his brother's uninjured wrist to monitor even the most minute of changes.

That had been several hours ago.

Sam sighed as he waited for the coffee machine to shudder its way past the finish line, chewing on the insides of his cheeks as it huffed and puffed and wheezed with exertion. Coffee had been the only thing keeping him going – for days now, it seemed – and with the way his hand was shaking as it reached for his empty mug, there seemed a high likelihood that he now had more caffeine than blood running through his veins. Maybe that also explained why his brain felt like a hamster on a wheel. The room was quiet but for the chugging of the machine, and Sam found that he was suddenly glad of its company; the loneliness of the solo wait beginning to wear on him. Slowly, carefully, he filled his mug, noting that stray drips were still peppering the counter-top despite his effort to keep his hand steady. He sighed again as he raised the mug to his lips, his stomach instinctively rebelling at the thought of more coffee even though he knew the sludge-coloured liquid was probably his last line of defence against the likelihood of his body staging a mutiny and keeling over.

He returned to Dean's side, automatically carrying out a visual sweep to catalogue any changes. But his heart trudged on as normal, not even bothering to freeze in anticipation anymore. The elder Winchester looked like a carved, stone tomb as he lay on the bed, an unwelcome thought that Sam was in no way engaging with. Still, he set his mug down on the nightstand and rearranged his brother's arms so that they looked more natural, less sculpted and artificial. He settled down on the opposite bed, surveying his handiwork. At least Dean now looked as if he was merely asleep, and having woken to such a familiar, settled picture throughout his life, that was something that Sam could deal with.

Mostly.

"Dean..." the younger Winchester began, something hot beginning to melt painfully inside him as he raked his eyes over his brother's face for the umpteenth time, still seeing no difference. He couldn't take any more of this. He'd given everything, would _still_ give anything that he had left and yet his brother hadn't returned to him. "Dean, you gotta wake up, man. I can't keep doing this." His throat was dry; dusty and gravelly like parched land. He didn't know if he was talking to fill the oppressive silence or because he believed that his big brother could truly hear him. Even as he suspected the former, he prayed for the latter. He wanted Dean back. Wanted him _really_ back. "I..." he paused, the words colliding and jumbling in his throat; emotions and sentiments he wished he could say to his brother's face but couldn't even seem to vocalise when Dean was unconscious before him. He wanted to say it. Why couldn't he say it? "I..." he began again, raising his hands and letting them fall helplessly onto his lap as though Dean would sense his struggle and step in to save him with a well timed joke or jibe. Sam let out half a chuckle at the thought. He hadn't realised sometimes just how much his brother said when he wasn't really saying anything at all. He raised his eyes sightlessly to the ceiling, his vision turned inwards as he tried to find the words. "You gotta be there to stop me from...from what I might become," Sam settled for, feeling like a coward as the 'I need you' he'd been choking on slipped back down his throat and into his heart. "I can't do this on my own," was as close as he was going to get.

And dammit, he meant it. He'd meant it back in Lafayette too, in the Impala after Dean had chewed out Ellen, though he wasn't sure if his big brother had really realised. He meant it, and he needed Dean to wake up so that he could show him. Sam wiped away a stray tear. "You hear me?" His voice rose in intensity as he slammed his uninjured fist down on his mattress, his fragile hope breaking again as desperation, worry and frustration burst through. "I can't do this on my own!"

o0o0o

Sam shifted slightly as Bobby pushed open the door. He hadn't been asleep. He'd just been...examining the insides of his eyelids. For an undetermined period of time.

The younger Winchester pushed himself away from the headboard that had apparently been taking more of his weight than he'd thought, his eyes immediately seeking out Dean. Letting his arms fall heavily to his sides at the unchanging picture before him, Sam let out a small sound of worried frustration in the back of his throat; his big brother was as unconscious as ever.

"And here I thought you'd be happy to see me," Bobby deadpanned in the background as he set a plastic bag and a six-pack on the room's modest, square table with a rustling clunk.

Sam twisted to shoot him a confused look before realising that his friend had caught his involuntary groan. "Bobby..." He began awkwardly, an apology gathering on his features as he levered himself from the bed and started towards the older hunter. His surrogate uncle looked more exhausted than Sam had ever seen him, a fatigue that seemed to stretch far beyond the physical. A fatigue that probably went as far as, and maybe even further than, the remote spot that Bobby had chosen to salt and burn Fiona's body. The lines on his forehead and around his eyes looked deeper, harsher in the feeble light.

"Rip van Winkle up yet?" The older man loudly and briskly cut across whatever stumbling apology Sam might have offered, loudly crinkling the bag so that it hissed sibilantly and pulling out a paper-wrapped parcel. He tossed it to the younger man, looking half-heartedly amused when Sam fumbled clumsily to catch it.

"No," Sam answered darkly, his gaze sliding compulsively back to his brother before he examined the package Bobby had launched at him. The scent was utterly overpowering; beef and cheese and onions and bacon...and the first real meal Sam had come across in days. His stomach responded with gusto, roaring out its approval, feeling almost painfully empty now that food was a real possibility. Sam knew he had denied his body rest and sustenance for too long, determined that he wouldn't allow it until his brother was okay again. But dammit, there was _nothing_ he could do until Dean woke up. "But this just might tempt him out of it," Sam joked after a pause, the humour desperately flapping its way into the air like an injured bird, but quickly plummeting to the floor as his enthusiasm waned. Nevertheless, he waved the burger in his brother's direction in the hope that the aroma might have some sort of Pavlovian effect.

He could have sworn he'd seen his brother's nose twitch, but then there was nothing.

Sam's shoulders drooped in disappointment and he slumped down at the small table opposite Bobby, unwrapping the burger with nerveless, inept fingers as he battled for control over his emotions. His old friend merely watched him, refraining from comment for several long seconds before passing him a beer. Sometimes words were overrated, Sam decided as he gladly accepted the offering and took a deep swig. The two men sat in a heavy, yet companionable silence as they consumed their food and drink. Both were studiously ignoring the extra food that Bobby had clearly bought with Dean in mind, but it sat there on the table between them, drawing their gazes like moths to a lamp.

"Why hasn't he woken up yet?" Sam broke the wordless spell that had settled over them, hating himself for the reassurance-seeking child he sounded like. "It's been hours. He doesn't wake up soon, he's going to get dehydrated...and then..." He let his uninjured palm fall flat against the table surface with a tight grimace. "He _should_ be in the hospital."

"You know that ain't an option, son," Bobby countered pragmatically, seeming to sense that keeping things at matter of fact level was what Sam needed. The older man might not have had kids of his own, but he had an instinctive grasp of fatherhood that was inherently comforting. "We'll get somethin' set up if we need to. I know a guy who knows a guy not far from here if it comes to that."

Sam ducked his head in acknowledgement and puffed out harshly through his nostrils. "Okay. But why hasn't he woken up? Bobby, what if he's really...What if he's still...?" They'd had this conversation before, in fact, they'd had it on an almost constant loop tape. Before the spell. After the spell. During the wait for nightfall. Carrying Dean to the Impala. Carrying Dean _from_ the Impala. And then now. But no matter how many times Bobby had tried to placate him, tried to tell him that the likelihood was low, Sam was not to be mollified.

The elder hunter closed his eyes with an almost audible thunk, looking as if opening them again took a great deal of effort. He rubbed his nose roughly and sniffed before fidgeting absently with the bill of his cap. "I don't know, Sam. I just don't know." And for the briefest of seconds, he looked stricken. Sam barely held onto his gasp as the older man quickly regained control of himself, shocked at the depths of the worry he'd seen. Worry that the younger Winchester knew only too well, that seemed to have hollowed him out, to have turned his soul into a barren, abandoned place where tumble-weeds rolled and whistling winds blew.

"This is all my fault, Bobby," Sam blurted, picking conscientiously at a hang-nail as he avoided his friend's eyes, almost enjoying the small, sharp pain that accompanied his efforts.

Silence reigned for several moments before his old friend responded.

"How in the hell do you figure that, boy?" Bobby's bushy brows had formed a pointed canopy above his eyes as he sputtered incredulously. He leaned back in his chair as if to get a clearer view of his young friend.

"Dean and I...we had a fight," Sam continued, feeling an almost kamikaze urge to just offload it all, consequences be damned, especially when he saw the open kindness in Bobby's eyes.

"Over what John told 'im," The older man correctly surmised with a nod, and Sam got the distinct impression that Bobby had been thinking more deeply about the younger Winchester's earlier confession than he'd let on.

"Yeah," Sam admitted softly. "I was pissed at Dean for keeping it from me. So I took off, snuck out while he was asleep. I'm not proud of it," he raised his voice defensively, though Bobby had given no reaction. "I just, I needed to find out what it meant and I thought Dean would try to stop me. I hid from him. Told Ellen to keep my location a secret. But she told him anyway and he came after me, only...only Gordon got to him first." Sam shook his head helplessly as he dropped his face onto his hand. "Dean was just trying to watch my back, Bobby. And I wasn't there to watch his until it was nearly too late."

"Does Dean see it that way?" Bobby countered gently.

"No!" Sam raised his head and shook it vehemently before he sobered again. "But I know I hurt him. And that's why he went behind my back on this hunt. It's why he didn't tell me what he was doing. It's why he got hurt."

"That boy makes his own decisions, Sam. Even the friggin' crazy, dumb, reckless ones. And as soon as he decides to grace us with his presence, I'm gonna smack the idjit upside the head for bein' so damn stupid!"

Sam let out a bark of laughter despite himself. "Well you're going to need to get in line, Bobby. I swear I'm going to have to put my brother on a leash."

Bobby chuckled under his breath "You'd still be cleanin' up his messes, boy."

The two men shared a look; amusement, exasperation, affection and concern passing wordlessly between them before Bobby abruptly broke the connection, glancing towards Dean and then back again. "This isn't all your fault, Sam. Both you idjits need your heads knockin' together."

The younger Winchester bounced his eyebrows and pursed his lips as he considered the truth in the older man's words. Dean had been irresponsible regardless of his reasons, but Sam knew he'd driven his brother to it. "Yeah, well, I'm not going to let this happen again. I'm going to have his back from now on."

Right, because he'd done such a _fine_ job of that over the past few days. His face fell at the thought and he flexed his fingers in impotent frustration.

"I need him with me, Bobby," Sam ground out, finding the words now when he hadn't been able to before. It seemed so much easier when Dean was out of his line of sight, so much easier when he wasn't actually addressing them to his big brother. "What dad said..." he trailed off, thinking again of his doom-laden future, off all the signs that now seemed horribly portentous. What he'd done to Fiona...the way he'd knowingly – or as good as knowingly – led her to her death...What did that say about him? What did that say about the tightrope he'd apparently been walking between light and dark? "What dad said," he repeated more forcefully this time, "what if it's true?"

Bobby opened his mouth emphatically, in all likelihood to resolutely disagree, but Sam held up a hand to halt him. "I have to believe it could be, Bobby. I'm not going to bury my head in the sand like Dean wants me to. But I need him. I can't do it without him. I'm just...I'm so scared he's going to get hurt. That _I'm_ going to hurt him."

Bobby just shook his head. "Are you touched in the head, Sam? You're not gonna hurt Dean! And good luck tryin' to keep that boy from lookin' out for you–"

"That's what I'm afraid of." Sam bluntly interrupted, stopping Bobby in his tracks.

The two men startled as a low, sleepy groan suddenly cut through the air. They froze, staring at each other for several paralysed seconds before Sam finally recovered himself. He shot up from his chair, only peripherally aware that he'd sent it flying in his haste, and turned towards his brother's bed. "Dean?" He called out urgently, frantic concern still at the helm even as he caught the slow, feeble movement of his brother's head against the pillow. "Dean!" He exclaimed anxiously, nearly tripping over himself as he hurried to reach the bed.

His brother was finally waking up.

His brother was finally waking up, but would he even know Sam when he opened his eyes?

o0o0o

_I know, I know, first I'm a day late and then I leave it there...But hey, the next one will be up on Sunday as usual, so there's less time to wait!_

_Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts!_


	18. Behind the Wall of Sleep

Thanks so much for every review, alert and favourite you all have given me over the course of this story. Your continued support and enjoyment means the world to me.

As always, there is a special place in my heart for my wonderful beta and friend, Sharlot. This story wouldn't be what it is without her invaluable input and hard work.

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 18 – Behind the Wall of Sleep**

Wakefulness trickled slowly above the surface of his slumbering consciousness in a slow, spindly stream of oozing, sludgy thoughts. There was blackness all around him, cloaking him, cocooning him. It was safe there, in the darkness. He could float there unimpeded, could drift and glide and just _be_. But though the thoughts tickled at him, teased at him, tried to entice him upwards and out of his shelter, Dean was cosy and heavy and drugged with sleep. And he didn't want to go anywhere. He fought it. Hard. Fought it with all of his might, but he was rising. Slowly at first, each shift in awareness a gradual, careful process. There was a padded surface beneath him – the odd lump and bump prodding uncomfortably and familiarly at his back and calves – and a starchy presence covering him. A motel bed...he realised sluggishly, feeling something stiffly squishy underneath the back of his head. _Makes sense_, he noted cautiously, a vague feeling of uncertainty crossing his mind like a darting shadow. The wheres and whats and whys of the situation were playing a frustrating game of hide and seek with him as his senses continued to grow in strength, his brain not even bothering to try to fill the gaps with anything realistic. Hell, he'd even have settled for something ridiculous if it meant an explanation for the misty, inscrutable cloud of something's-not-quite-right that blanketed his thoughts.

He felt himself frown, the action curiously tight and stilted as muscles tugged at skin. Something else that didn't seem quite right, but his somatosensory workforce had yet to clock on for duty, leaving a disconcertingly leaden numbness that was indomitably anchoring him in place. Somewhere around him sounds were humming, their cadence low and agitated, the back and forth quality of them beginning to become more distinct as the seconds passed. Voices? His thoughts blipped slightly as he tried to process the murmurs, but beginnings and endings were merging and jumbling and he couldn't yet make out the words. His attention spiked sharply as he recognised first one voice, and then the other. Sam. Sammy was nearby. And Bobby...their old friend was there too. Dean would have known the older man's coarse timbre anywhere.

"...I'm so scared he's going to get hurt. That _I'm_ going to hurt him." Sam was fretting in a brittle tone. Dean twitched, something sparking to life in the elder Winchester's mind as he picked up the unrestrained angst in his brother's words. Sam...Sam was upset. Worried that he was going to hurt someone. Hurt who? Dean sputtered internally. The kid didn't even like swatting flies, usually standing to the side wearing his patented bitchface of disapproval while Dean gaily swiped and walloped with a rolled up newspaper. Come to think of it, the paper was normally one of Sam's snooze-worthy, pretentious rags. Huh, maybe that was why the kid had always looked so pissed.

The recollection came out of nowhere, shooting into his mind's sky and exploding like a firework.

_If it can happen to her...Dean...what if I–_

_It's not gonna happen, Sam._

Crap. Sam was talking about _him_. Sam was worried about hurting _him_. And that realisation was all it took, a torrential downpour of memories drenching him and drowning him. Each image pelting him like tiny droplets. Ava, Gordon, Lafayette, Peoria, Dad, Sammy, _hetoldyouimighthavetokillyou_...

Instantly the heaviness was gone, and all of a sudden Dean was growing in buoyancy, rushing upwards at dizzying speed. Sensations flooded him; pushing outwards from within – feeling as if they would burst him clean open – and bearing down on him from the outside – pressing into every inch of skin and muscle and bone. There was pain. Holy freakin' crap there was _pain_. It ground his lungs to a halt, robbing him of air as it spasmed and rumbled. It short-circuited his thoughts, agony and torment the only thing he could process as he lay helplessly on the bed. His head felt like a concrete block of solid agony, radiating a dull, pervasive ache that throbbed to fluttering beat of his heart. There was a dense tenderness in his midriff, an unknown trauma that both body and brain were trying to suppress from conscious awareness. Ribs? He shifted infinitesimally to test the theory, feeling his stomach drop and swing as if from the gallows as a horrible, crunching sensation temporarily halted all operations. Definitely ribs, the rational part of his mind nodded sagely and made note while the other part writhed and screamed. He'd broken enough of the damn things over the years to be able to recognise the feeling easily enough. And now that everything was playing out in full cinematic production, Dean could feel seemingly ubiquitous bruises and cuts flare up in accompaniment to the feature presentation.

What the hell had happened to him?

God, it hurt. It hurt so much that he felt his flesh would surely explode outwards from its force. He could almost see blood spattering against the walls, could picture chunks of muscle and tendon raining to the ground like a shower of meteors. He couldn't contain it, couldn't restrain it, couldn't bury it. And no matter how pathetic it was, how much of a failure it made him, Dean needed his brother.

Needed Sam right the hell now.

"Sam!" He tried to call out, but with lips still flaccid and rubbery from his period of hibernation, all he could manage was a feeble, sleepy moan. If his pride hadn't been locked in a steel box, wrapped several times over in painful chains and buried beneath several tons of torment, Dean might have cared enough to be embarrassed at how friggin' weak he'd sounded. But he didn't, and all he could feel was a soothing relief as he realised that his paltry groan had been enough to alert Sam to his predicament.

"Dean?" The elder Winchester could hear the concern haemorrhaging from his brother's urgent cry and tried desperately to respond, but another spasm closed his throat over so that he choked wordlessly. His eyelids fluttered – not even open yet, he registered with some surprise – as he instinctively sought out a loping, gargantuan form, but they were weighted down, keeping him trapped now in the darkness that had earlier seemed so protective. "Dean!" Sam called out again, nearer this time and accompanied by hurried, scuffed footsteps.

Then a large, warm paw was gently cupping the side of his head, and god help him, but Dean couldn't stop himself from turning towards it. His breath hitched sharply as his skull protested the movement, and he let out another incoherent moan. "Hey, hey, take it easy," Sam's voice was barely above a whisper now, close enough that Dean could feel the gentle buffeting of his brother's warm breath against his cheek. The words were thick and restrained, as if Sam was battling something large and untamed, as if he had something jagged and hard stuck in his throat. "It's okay, you're okay," Sam continued softly, sounding as if he was trying to reassure himself as much as his big brother, moving his palm to Dean's forehead and beginning to smooth back his hair. "Dean, can you hear me? How about opening those eyes for me, huh?" There was something tentative in the kid's tone, imbued with a coded meaning that Dean couldn't hope to decipher, but if he could do anything to ease his little brother's distress, then he was friggin' going to try.

Dean groaned again and shifted frailly, wishing he hadn't when pain boomeranged the length of his body. "Hurts," he managed with another flutter of his eyelids; that one scratchy, gasped word taking all of his strength. Utterly spent, he sagged down against the mattress, not realising how tensely he'd been holding himself, and felt the hand on his forehead still its stroking motion.

"I know." The acknowledgement sounded as painful for his brother to say as it was for Dean to hear. "But you're going to be alright. You're going to be okay." The assurances had an almost hysterical edge to them, and Dean could easily tell how freaked out his brother was, even if he didn't know exactly why. "I'm going to give you something to make it better."

Were those tears clogging the kids words? Dean would recognise them anywhere, ears fine-tuned from years of listening out for nightmares and scraped knees.

"'M fine," the elder Winchester ground out through clenched teeth, falling back into his well-worn repertoire as he heard the shakiness in Sam's breathing. He had to be strong, had to be the rock he'd always been for his little brother, even if his body felt like it was being torn apart cell by cell.

A huff. "Yeah, I can see that." And there it was: the fond, sarcastic exasperation he'd been looking for, even if it was nothing more than a thin veneer over the top of his brother's desperate concern.

"Bitch." Even whispering seemed almost beyond Dean now, but it was worth it for the startled gasp he got in response, and the smile that followed; the one he could _hear_ so clearly that he could picture it perfectly.

"Jerk!" There was happiness there he couldn't begin to understand, but he was glad if he'd been the one to put it there. There was a laden pause, followed by a sniff and a cough. _Girl_, Dean thought fondly.

"Hold on, dude. I'm going to get you something for the pain, alright? I'll be back."

As if Dean needed the reassurance.

The elder Winchester couldn't help the mournful sound that escaped his lips when the balm of Sam's hand left his forehead. He hadn't realised quite how much of the pain his brother had been keeping at bay by mere presence alone. Prising at his eyelids, he frantically tried to follow the kid's progress, but they continued to refuse his orders, making him feel more helpless than ever as the waves of agony crashed against his body. He turned his head on the pillow with painstaking slowness, even the slightest of movements an almost insurmountable task. When his cheek brushed against the stiff cotton of the pillowcase, he paused and began turning back again, needing to do something while he waited in limbo for his brother's return.

He'd barely made it half-way before Sam was back again. "Easy, easy," Sam chanted softly as he steadied Dean's head with gentle fingers. His thumb was cool and wet as he rubbed it soothingly across the older man's forehead, smoothing out the lines that had furrowed there. "Here, take these," the younger Winchester murmured, though Dean was sure they both knew he was incapable of voluntarily accepting or declining anything. The babying was utterly humiliating, but Dean appreciated the attempt to involve him in the decision-making nonetheless. Sam slid his fingers around to the back of Dean's head and began raising it oh so carefully from the pillow, the coolness achingly wonderful against the skin there even as the motion made him want to hurl. His pulse quickened as a strange vertigo came over him, and then another set of fingers were nudging insistently at his mouth. Cursing his frailty once more he obligingly opened up and allowed his brother to tip the pills onto his tongue. The water followed next – the culprit for the wetness on Sam's fingers, he realised – and he gulped down a few mouthfuls, feeling the pills slide easily down a throat that suddenly felt furry and dry like a carpet. Jeez, he was thirsty! He began swallowing with more vigour, letting out a low sound of angry frustration when the glass was abruptly removed from his lips.

"I know you're thirsty, man, but I'm not cleaning up after you if end up puking everywhere. You can have more later, I promise."

Dean growled unhappily as Sam lowered his head back down onto the pillow, but he was fading fast, the painkillers beginning to tingle across his body. Jesus, they were working fast. Pain's signal began to go fuzzy and jerky like white noise, everything around him becoming distorted and addled. Colours bloomed behind his eyelids, bursting and swirling and zig-zagging and blobbing. This had to be the heavy-duty, industrial-strength stuff, he mused idly as his limbs began to sink downwards. It was freakin' fantastic.

"Go back to sleep, grumpy." The jibe was pure affection, Sam-style. "I'll be here when you wake up."

o0o0o

Sam let his palm settle on the crown of Dean's head as the older man began drifting off once more, not quite ready to let their connection end even though his brother's consciousness had long since left the building. The younger Winchester stroked a thumb absently through his brother's tousled tufts, feeling it tickle his skin as he tried to sift through the emotional detritus that Dean had sent scattering when he'd burst into wakefulness. His heart felt as if it had been hung, drawn and quartered as he scraped his cast-covered hand down his face, yanking at the skin on his cheeks until his eyes bulged. He felt giddy and high even as the heaviness in his limbs began weighing him down.

Dean was looking peaceful at least, a dopey grin nudging at the corners of his lips, and Sam couldn't quell the rush of fondness that assailed him at the sight. After the angst and darkness of the past few days, seeing a smile that was so Dean, that he could actually store for future teasing fodder without fear of it being his last, was somehow freeing. Sam closed his eyes, lingering just long enough to avoid tipping over the edge and into the sleepy abyss that hovered below him – though he swayed precariously on the spot nonetheless. Raising the shutters once more, he traced his brother's features with his eyes, easily picking up the clues now that he'd missed before Dean had roused, those intangible signs that Dean was really Dean, that he'd returned.

There had been a horrible few moments when Sam hadn't been able to tell, too distraught at the evident pain his brother was in to be able to concentrate on the subtleties. Like the fact that Dean had turned instinctively towards Sam's touch, that he hadn't cringed away from his little brother as he had done the previous night. Like the hastily gathered and poorly assembled attempt to inform Sam that he was 'fine' when he was practically acid-tripping on an agony that radiated from him so strongly even Sam was certain he could feel it on some level. In fact, the younger man _knew_ he could. Both events should have allayed Sam's fears that Dean wouldn't know him when he woke up, but it wasn't until his big brother had called him by that particular appellation, the one that struck the younger man even deeper than 'Sammy', that he'd really believed. The one that meant more to Sam than those epic three words ever would have. The Winchesters didn't say 'I love you', they said so much more with so much less.

That strained but affectionately murmured 'bitch' had nearly floored him, and he'd struggled to return the endearment, lungs flailing and flapping helplessly as they drowned in the tidal wave of relief that had swamped him. Dean was back, he was really back.

Even now the feeling of joy was palpable, almost like an opiate to the man who'd watched his brother lose everything; who'd seen him hurt and kidnapped and tortured and...empty. As he'd heard the warmth in Dean's voice, he'd felt his heavy heart shed its load and take flight. Then he'd finally found his voice, not knowing quite how he'd managed to keep it so steady as he'd felt his puffy eyes sting with the threat of further tears. But he had. Dean had needed him to be the strong one, to do the looking after, and Sam wasn't about to falter. So he'd channelled all his energy into getting his brother's pills and helping him to drink. Even with his eyes impenetrably shut, Sam had still been able to see the discomfort on Dean's face at the manhandling and coddling, but the elder Winchester had endured it without complaint. Which was a worry in itself, but Sam was filing that one in the non-urgent drawer. The trust his brother had shown him then had been humbling, reminding the younger Winchester yet again how much he regretted ever having walked away. He didn't know how much of that trust would remain once Dean got better, once the older man repaired the almost impervious wall that he kept his emotions encased behind, but it was enough for Sam to know that his brother would turn to him when he needed him most. Even if the younger Winchester wasn't sure he entirely deserved it.

Sam sighed softly as he removed his hand from Dean's head and moved it to his brother's wrist. Just checking. Just in case. But Dean's pulse, though somewhat lethargic beneath the pad of his finger from the anaesthetic effect of the medication, was as normal as Sam could have hoped for.

So why couldn't he relax?

His good mood was all too cautious and suspicious despite the momentousness of what had just happened. It might have been the carry-over from days' worth of denied sleep and strung-out emotions, or it might have been the fact that he still didn't know if his brother was truly back to his old self. That Dean knew him was evident, and he'd spoken as lucidly and naturally as pain had allowed. It ought to have been enough, but Sam knew he wouldn't be able to breathe easy until he was certain that the Maniae had returned everything they had taken. And then there was the fact that Dean still hadn't opened his eyes. If Sam had just gotten a look, even a peek at his big brother's hazel-green gaze, he felt sure he'd have seen all he'd have needed to. But though Dean had tried – and Sam had watched his struggle with a frustrating impotence – he hadn't been able to fully surface.

Sam jammed the thumb and forefinger of his cast-covered hand into his eye sockets, willing the tiredness to stay away just a little longer. He was pretty sure his brother would sleep soundly and restoratively for a good long while on the hospital-grade painkillers that Bobby had sourced from god only knew where, but the younger Winchester didn't want to abandon his post just yet. Irrational as it was, he couldn't help but worry that if he fell asleep, he'd wake up and find that the last ten minutes hadn't really happened. He just needed a little extra time to make sure. Yes, he'd wait until his brother woke again. And besides, what if Dean roused early and needed more pain relief? What if he needed more water? No, Sam shook his head tightly, he couldn't allow himself to hand sleep the reins just yet.

When the sound of a throat being impatiently cleared cut through the air behind him, Sam nearly leapt three feet into the air; he'd completely forgotten that Bobby was even in the room. Waiting for his heart to jolt back into action, Sam twisted to look over his shoulder. The veteran hunter was leaning forward in his chair, cocking his head at Sam with affected nonchalance as his eyes blazed intently. "Well?" Bobby spread his palms and raised his eyebrows expectantly. "We dealin' with Jekyll or Hyde?"

If Sam had been entertaining the idea of feeling guilty over not keeping his old friend in the loop, that last comment banished any lingering inclinations. He huffed out a laugh that felt more like sigh at Bobby's typically unsentimental delivery. He shot a glance at his snoozing brother. "I don't know for sure..." he began, doubt still snapping at the heels of his thoughts, "I don't think we _can_ be until he wakes up properly. But..." he smiled. "But I think he's okay, Bobby," he whooshed out on an exhale, seeing an answering relief ignite in his friend's gaze. "I think we got him back."

Bobby was silent for a long moment, his expression unreadable though his eyes were shining. Sam longed to call him on it, but decided he'd probably be more use to his brother without an ass full of buckshot. The elder hunter ran a hand along the base of his beard, scratching audibly. Then he nodded. "Good," he said, rolling his eyes indulgently, "now that your brother's finished bein' a drama queen, I think it's time you and me got ourselves some shut-eye. I'm bushed."

He looked it too. Sam nodded at the older man, smiling kindly at him and gesturing towards the free bed. "You go ahead, Bobby," he offered as he turned back to Dean. "I think I'm just going to sit up for a while."

"You're gonna do no such thing, boy. Are you forgettin' the fact that you nearly fell into my arms like a damsel in distress just a few hours ago? You're wrung drier than my laundry," Bobby deadpanned, though his jaw was set to 'obstinate', his shoulders to 'take-no-prisoners'.

Sam couldn't help but wince at the metaphor, a visual of the older man's drawers not something he wanted to give screen time to. "Bobby..."

"My trigger finger's gettin' _awful_ itchy, boy. Don't make me get my gun," he paused, seeing the scepticism on the younger man's face. "What, you wanna test me on that?"

"It's just..." Sam dragged reluctant eyes from his brother to look beseechingly across at the elder hunter.

"Trust me, Sam, that boy's gonna be down for a while. He ain't gonna miss you for a few hours. Then you can wake 'im up and get some more water in 'im," Bobby patted his knees with his hands and rose to his feet, joints cracking and creaking like twigs as they straightened out.

"Alright," the younger Winchester agreed with a defeated groan and followed Bobby's lead, feeling his own bones squeaking ominously as he pushed up from Dean's mattress. Maybe just an hour or two wouldn't do any harm, Sam thought. "But you're taking the bed," he pointed towards the undisturbed bed-coverings once more.

The younger man could have sworn he'd heard a muttered "girl," in response. "What?" He demanded with exaggerated exasperation, bitchfacing an oblivious Bobby as the veteran hunter turned around.

"Nothin'," came the all too innocent response as Bobby lowered himself down onto the bed and removed his cap. The older man settled down onto the mattress and let out a groan of pleasure that was somewhat...uncomfortable. Sam merely raised his eyebrows, silently thanking Bobby for yet another image he hadn't wanted.

For a moment silence commanded the room until Bobby cranked open an eye and skewered Sam with an unimpressed glare. "You gonna stand there watchin' me sleep all night?"

"Shut up," Sam grunted good-naturedly as he moved to grab a spare pillow from the closet and settled down in the space between the two beds. It was hard to judge which surface was worse, he mused as he shuffled around in discomfort, the carpet or his bed in the previous motel.

He was asleep before he'd reached a decision.

o0o0o

Sam didn't know how long he'd slept. He just knew it wasn't long enough, not even close. His awakening was abrupt, a slap in the face.

Literally.

His eyes shot open when something hard and fleshy collided with his nose, and he let out a ridiculously unmanly yelp as pain ignited between his eyes. Disorientated, it took several seconds for his dislodged brain to settle back into place, and he blinked madly as he lifted an uncoordinated hand to shove at the offending object. When his fingers met tarnished skin instead of the two-by-four he'd been expecting, his eyes widened even further, the milky film that had been obscuring his vision finally dissipating. Revealing a fist, and an arm. _Dean's_ arm.

"Wha..." Sam slurred drunkenly as he started to push himself up from the...from the _wall_ behind him? Why the hell had he fallen asleep against the wall? His head rung like clanging bell as he steadied himself with a hand braced behind him. The pillow he'd apparently been leaning on slipped limply to his lower back, and he could feel its mangled shape pressing into him uncomfortably. His heart was hammering, from the rude awakening or from some as yet unarticulated fear, he didn't know, but it was pounding in his ears like bass drum.

The space around him was dim, but sunlight outside had set the room's amber curtains ablaze. So it was morning. Or afternoon. Or early evening. Yeah, that helped a whole lot, especially since he didn't even remember falling asleep. He glanced around him, seeing that he'd been slumped in the space between the room's twin beds. His legs seemed to take that recognition as their cue to start seeking reprisal for the cramped, confined position he'd kept them in during his slumber, a dull ache creeping slowly up his body until his back and shoulders decided to add their voice to the protest. Why had he...? Why would he...? He looked first at one bed, seeing Bobby lolling exhaustedly – dead to the world – and then the other, seeing a stirring Dean, the arm that had hit him drowsily returning itself to the bed.

Dean.

Sam cocked his head, wondering why he ought to be marvelling.

_Dean_.

Recognition hit him with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer.

_Crap_, Sam groaned internally, how long had he slept? Flustered, the younger Winchester checked his watch. And groaned again, this time out loud. Dammit, he'd only meant to take a short nap, give his batteries just a little more juice, but it was now five hours since Dean had last woken. Since his brother had_ first_ woken. Sam muttered an expletive. He was supposed to be looking after Dean, making sure his big brother had everything he needed, making sure that the elder Winchester's first foray into consciousness hadn't been a fake or a fluke, or a_ one time_ occurrence. The younger man felt his heart pick up its pace at the thought of something having happened to Dean while he'd dozed off. Sam bit his lip and closed his eyes in recrimination before tossing aside the thin quilt he'd used to cover himself the previous night and scrambling to his feet. The bedcover became tangled around his feet in his haste however, nearly sending him sprawling right across Dean's middle.

But he righted himself at the last moment, one hand outstretched for balance while the other clutched at his chest. _Jesus..._he thought, not even wanting to imagine what might have happened. Breathing heavily, and feeling oddly weak and shaky, he stared at Dean through the strands of dishevelled hair that had fallen before his eyes. The elder Winchester was clearly rousing, one arm snaking its way up past his stubbly chin and languidly reaching towards the headboard, the other – the one that had hit Sam – slithering sleepily across his chest. His face, turned just far enough from Sam to prevent the younger Winchester from getting a good look at his features, began burrowing deeper against the pillow. A soft grunt escaped Dean's lips as he instinctively sought further comfort, the sigh that followed indicating pay dirt.

Sam shook his head faintly, the worries that had shackled him earlier beginning to loosen and drop from his heart with a clatter. He was almost sure now, as sure as he could be without actually seeing Dean's eyes and talking plainly with him, that his brother was back to his normal self. How could he not be, the way he was snuggled in the bed like that? He'd seen that exact picture countless times, the nostalgia hitting him hard as he remembered the number of nights he'd stood trembling at the foot of his brother's bed as a child, terrifying nightmares battling with increasing age as he hesitated over whether to waken his brother and risk being called a girl. Not that that had _ever_ happened following a nightmare, he had to admit. Even now, with his crippling waking-visions, Dean had never made Sam feel like he couldn't go to him.

Of course, the picture _was_ different this time. For one, Dean – while he often picked up the odd cut or bruise during a hunt, indeed was almost disappointed if he _didn't_ return to the motel with some form of evidence for his badass credentials– didn't usually look as if he'd fallen head-first down a cliff-face. Though the worst of the marks had faded, leaving his skin looking more like dappled granite than blotted marble, Dean still looked small and fragile. Something that was all kinds of wrong. Something Sam had hoped never to see again after the accident. After the heart-attack. Dammit, even those two times had been two times too many. _You can't keep doing this to me, dude._ Sam sighed, scrubbing a hand through his chaotic hair before lowering himself gently onto the edge of Dean's bed.

The elder Winchester seemed to frown slightly at the change in his elevation as the bed dipped under Sam's added weight, forehead tightening minutely before it smoothed out again. His eyelids fluttered feebly as his eyeballs shuddered and quivered beneath, before his lashes settled back against his skin, fanning out with feathery lightness. Sam watched his brother silently for a moment, loath to disturb him but knowing that he needed to get some more water into him. He wrapped his fingers around Dean's uninjured wrist and tentatively took his pulse. It was stronger now than it had been, and a little faster than Sam would have liked, but he wasn't about to complain. Because it was there. And Sam hadn't forgotten the fear he'd felt the previous night when he'd thought it was gone. The younger Winchester tented his brows as Dean's pulse continued to beat out a rapid rhythm. The painkillers had surely worn off by now, though Dean didn't look to be in too much discomfort. But still, Sam wasn't happy.

He assessed Dean from top to toe, looking for further signs that pain had returned to torment his big brother, but he saw no obvious clues. Dean's body was slack and at ease, no lines tautening around his eyes and mouth. Letting his gaze linger on the older man's face, Sam saw that Dean's hair was tufted and matted like long grass, and he reached out instinctively to smooth it. He'd barely touched his brother's forehead however before his hand was sluggishly batted aside. "G'way," Dean murmured sloppily and started to shift away from Sam with an impassioned growl.

Knowing that his brother would likely hurt himself if he tried to turn over in a sleepy haze – and feeling nauseous at the thought of Dean's ribs grinding together – Sam reached out a hand to halt his brother's progress, pressing Dean's shoulder gently but firmly down against the mattress. "Oh, no you don't, dude. You're going to stay with me a little longer, alright?"

"Mmmm," Dean hummed passively, whether in agreement or protest Sam couldn't tell, but he was going to take what he could get.

"Okay, just gimme a sec. I'll be right back," Sam nodded – though he knew Dean wouldn't conceivably be able to see him through closed eyelids – and patted him on the shoulder as he began to rise, intending to get his brother another glass of water and some more painkillers. Just because Dean was too sleepy to fully feel the pain yet didn't mean that it wasn't there somewhere, underneath the surface. And Sam wanted to protect his brother from that as much as he could.

Sam had barely made it to his feet before a typically defiant Dean began to twist around again, but though he reached out instinctively, this time the younger Winchester was too late to prevent the stifled groan as pain finally made its dramatic entrance. "Hey! Hey, take it easy. Just take it easy," he chanted softly as he lowered himself down again and made to still the movement of his brother's head and shoulders, alarmed by the quickening in Dean's breathing.

But the hand came up again to swat him aside as if he was nothing more than a minor nuisance.

"M' fine, S'mmy," came the expected assertion, but the strained whisper stripped it instantly of any true conviction. "So quit feelin' me up and lemme sleep." It was sounding more and more like classic Dean with every passing second, Sam's hope growing even as his irritation spiked in tandem.

Why did his brother have to insist on making _everything_ a battle?

Because he wouldn't have been Sam's big brother if he didn't, and the image of a blank, malleable Dean being folded placidly into the Impala's passenger seat was only too fresh in Sam's memory. He'd take cantankerous, bullheaded Dean over that any day. Though, he admitted to himself, there were limits.

"Stubborn jerk," Sam chided exasperatedly as he pressed down on Dean's shoulder again, feeling his brother's feeble attempts to push past the restraint. Dean's lack of strength was worrying, if not unsurprising, and Sam didn't think it had ever been so easy to hold his brother down. It felt wrong, like misaligned planets or a law of nature being broken. But Dean was on the road to recovery now, assuming he let Sam take care of him – which was debatable – and he'd probably be back to his irritating, obnoxious self so quickly that he'd have the younger man wishing he'd let him sleep just a little bit longer. Heck, he was already half-way there.

"Stay," Sam ordered his big brother, putting just a little extra weight behind his palm to emphasise his authority, though he was careful to stick to the areas he knew weren't so badly bruised.

"Not a frgn' dog, dude." It was amazing how much disdain a person could lace a whisper with, and the way his brother's lips were curled, his expression was practically a sneer.

"No you're right," Sam agreed, deadpan. "At least _dogs_ do what they're told."

"Sh'tup," Dean's breath snagged on the exhaled directive, ripping and tearing as he sought to draw in more air. His features tightened, the planes of his cheeks sharpening as he grimaced, his eyes squeezing further shut. "Sonofabitch," he hissed through clenched teeth.

Sam felt his lips thin in disapproval and he forced back a reflexive reprimand at his brother's over-exertion. "Talk to me, man. How are you feeling?" Sam had dropped all pretence of levity as he leaned closer.

"Tol' you. M' fine." The deflection was far easier to stomach than the agonised '_hurts_' Dean had sobbed out hours earlier, but then, Sam supposed, that was probably the point. Dean never stopped trying to protect him, no matter how much effort it took nor how much Sam deserved it – or not. Nevertheless, Sam wasn't buying it for a second. He wasn't inclined to take his brother at his word when said word had been barely audible, and he didn't want Dean wasting what little energy he had.

"Wanna try that one again?" Sam quirked a sceptical brow and bitchfaced his intractable brother, again recognising the redundancy of the action. But then, Dean knew him so well he'd probably be able to picture it just fine.

"Don't you point that bitchface at me," Dean coughed out before he unlatched an eye and glowered, the full force of his irritation palpable even from the tiny part of his retina that Sam could see.

Sam tried not to react, tried not to make an event out of something as mundane as an opened eye. But as soon as he'd seen it, that hazel-green spark, he'd let out an awed breath, the purest smile erupting on his face, nearly splitting it in two. "Hey," he barely managed to wheeze, completely overcome as something large and hot began building in his chest, expanding and ballooning to fill the pit of hollow emptiness that had sat in Sam's soul since he'd realised he'd lost his brother, sealing him back together. This was Dean. This was really Dean. There was no doubt in Sam's mind now. "It's you," he said stupidly, not knowing what else to say, how else to mark the occasion. But then again, he realised, he didn't really _need_ to say anything else. Those two words said it all.

The elder Winchester, somewhat perturbed by this unexpected reaction to his scowl, opened his eyes further and looked at Sam with open disbelief, as if his little brother had just declared that he wanted to give up hunting to go and join a travelling circus. "You w're expct'n some'ne else?" He ground out with ostensible amusement but his eyes grew concerned as he scanned his little brother's features.

"You have no idea." Sam shook his head with a huffed breath, gaze never leaving Dean's.

"You okay, Sammy?" Dean strained out through another wince of pain and began struggling upwards. "What the hell happened?"

Sam opened his mouth and then stopped abruptly as he immediately moved to halt his brother's progress, subduing him with little effort. Dean lowered himself reluctantly but continued to stare commandingly at his little brother. Sam gave himself a sarcastic pat on the back. _Nice going. _He shouldn't have said anything, shouldn't have upset Dean. His big brother was suffering, and as his energy reserves dipped, it was becoming clearer and clearer that Dean was having to work harder to keep up his 'front'. Sam couldn't lay this on his brother too, not now. "Later, Dean. I'll fill you in later, I swear. But right now? You need to get some more sleep. I'm going to get you some pills, you're going to take them, and then you're going to go back to sleep, okay?"

Dean blew out an unimpressed 'pffft'. "Bossy," he accused weakly but didn't argue, and didn't move when Sam rose from the bed. "Who died an' made you b'g br'thr, huh?" Dean mumbled dozily, letting his eyelids float to a close.

"_You_ nearly did," Sam murmured under his breath, as he moved slowly away from Dean's bed, having to fight against the urge to turn around at every step. He quickly assembled the supplies he needed, nearly dropping the brimming glass of water in his haste to get back to his brother. He made the save just in time, slopping only a small amount of liquid onto the floor. Jeez he was tired, he realised suddenly, feeling the numbness of delayed reactions slowing his limbs down. Five hours was clearly not enough to get his engine to full-throttle. That was two near-accidents he'd had in the space of ten minutes.

He rechecked the number of pills Dean was allowed. Just in case. The necessity of sleep was becoming more apparent now, Sam realising that mistakes were far more likely if he didn't look after himself too. And Dean would kick his ass if he hurt himself.

When Sam returned to Dean's side, it was all too obvious that his brother's façade had slipped. Silently mourning the older man's almost pathological need to project an image of imperviousness, Sam mentally catalogued the extent of his brother's suffering. Dean's eyes were still screwed shut, the tendons on his neck stretched so taut they looked as though they might snap at any second. His face was turned away, probably so that Sam wouldn't see whatever was written in his features. The bed vibrated slightly when the younger Winchester settled himself at its edge, and he realised that Dean's muscles were held so tense that they were shaking. "Hey," Sam said gently, setting the water down on the nightstand and laying a hand on Dean's shoulder, stroking his thumb there absently as he leaned over to try and entice his brother to look at him. "I know it hurts, dude. But you don't have to do this. These will help."

Dean said nothing, because he couldn't or because he didn't want to, Sam didn't know. But he knew by the tiniest change in his brother's breathing that he'd heard the words. And that would have to do for now.

"C'mon," Sam cajoled lightly, barely masking the lump of concern that had risen in his throat. He tapped Dean's shoulder until his brother turned his face back towards him. The younger Winchester had to suppress a gasp at the torment he saw there, knowing his brother wouldn't thank him for the acknowledgement. But still...Dean's eyes gleamed with a darkness that seeped through the pain that clouded them and he was clearly blinking away tears. There was a wetness on the skin underneath however that suggested he'd had limited success, and Sam averted his gaze out of respect, trying to afford his brother the dignity Dean was now aware enough to strive for.

Wanting to say something profound and comforting but completely at a loss as to what, Sam sighed and swallowed. "Open up," he said pragmatically after a fortifying throat-clear and tipped the pills past Dean's obligingly parted lips. His brother didn't protest, but somehow that seemed far worse than it had just a few hours ago. Maybe because he knew his brother really wanted to object, maybe because he could sense Dean's humiliation. Nevertheless, he slipped a palm behind the older man's neck, supporting him as he had done earlier and picked up the sweating glass. This time though, he offered it to his brother's uninjured hand, feeling bolstered when Dean opened his fingers and accepted it. Sam let his palm linger there as the older man lifted the glass to his lips, just in case Dean's strength waned. He levered his brother's head up a little more, careful not to lift it too high and watched as the elder Winchester managed to swallow the pills. He let his brother drink a little longer this time, until the glass was empty, and then caught it just in time as it fell from Dean's slackened fingers. "Whoa, whoa," he muttered as he quickly averted disaster. "I got it, Dean. S'okay, just go back to sleep."

Dean's fingers curled slightly as he looked up through narrowed eyes, the irises beginning to turn glassy. "Sammy?"

Sam smiled softly back. "Yeah, Dean?"

"Thanks"

Dean was asleep before his little brother could tell him none was needed.

o0o0o

_Yay, no cliffhanger this time! I'm hoping that Chapter 19 will tie up all remaining loose ends, but we'll see how it goes. At the moment, I'm still aiming to have this ready for next Sunday, but real life has thrown me a couple of difficult curve-balls lately so it is still in the works. I do hope you'll bear with me on that, and I'll have it ready for posting as soon as I can. _

_Anyway, thanks for reading, I'd love to hear from you if you have time to drop me a line! _


	19. Us Against the World

Hey everyone!

So this is it: the last chapter. Apologies for the amount of time it took to get this one finished, but I hope the length makes up for it! Thanks to everyone who has stuck with me throughout this story, and who has been kind enough to drop me a review, favourite or alert.

I had a couple of guest reviews that I wasn't able to reply to directly, but just want to say how much I really appreciate their kind words and encouragement.

And last, but definitely not least, I want to take one final chance to thank my wonderful beta Sharlot for her support, encouragement and friendship during the writing of this story. She was generous enough to cast her eye over the last part of this chapter today so that I could get it posted before I head off on holiday. You're a star! :)

Okay, enough rambling from me. Hope you all enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural, nor any canon characters therein, and I am making no profit from this piece of fiction.

o0o0o

**Chapter 19 – Us Against the World**

The room was shadowy when Dean opened his eyes, but it was more the artificial dimness of curtains closed to keep daylight out rather than the deep darkness of nightfall. Reclining pleasantly on the cusp of sleep, pain for the moment dulled by anaesthetic drowsiness, the elder Winchester dreamily meandered his gaze around their latest motel room. He wasn't sure exactly where they were, he just knew that it wasn't quite what he'd been expecting – a vague image of gyrating colours and nauseating flower patterns rippling just beneath the surface of his memory – but it was clearly a motel room of their usual fare. The wallpaper was ugly and blotchy; standard. The furniture was musty and grubby; typical. A lampshade on the wall opposite his bed was hung at a jaunty angle, clearly broken; same old, same old. He eased his head around on a pillow that felt like a bag of marbles and took in the view to his left.

Wait...What?

A not-so-normal sight met his exploring eyes and his brows locked together in confusion. The lump on the opposite bed was clearly too bulky to be Sam, but the gloom prevented him from getting a better look. He squinted in bewilderment until the shape shifted sleepily and sighed contentedly, and Dean immediately identified the interloper as Bobby. He frowned more deeply still, wondering what and how much he'd missed, delving the fingers of his consciousness deep into the reservoir of his memories to try to find the stray piece of information that would make all of this clear.

But his mind was a blank canvas, and Dean felt his fists tighten in frustration. Bobby being there was weird enough, but more to the point, where the hell was Sam? Dean felt his heart quicken as he worriedly cast his gaze about his surroundings, searching for a familiar, sasquatch-shaped figure. The fact that Sam hadn't even sensed his big brother's return to wakefulness was a major cause for concern. Dean would swear the kid heard changes in breathing on a frequency even dogs would have struggled to detect. It was something Dean himself did without thinking, so in tune with his brother that he found himself noticing even the most minute of changes in Sam's rhythm. But there was no huffing and puffing and tutting and fussing, and the elder Winchester felt his stomach flip anxiously. Where was Sam? The kid was never far away if Dean was hurt. Dammit, Sam should _be_ there.

If Bobby was there in Sam's place, what did that mean for his little brother's fate? What if Sam was hurt...But wait, Dean could recall now the younger man's presence earlier, floating above him when he'd been almost delirious with pain. Sam had been there then, and he'd been fine.

No, Sam was definitely around somewhere.

It wasn't until he'd shifted on the bed to get a better view of the room, the accompanying spike of pain nearly making him gasp out loud as it crushed his lungs, that he finally realised where his little brother was. Sam was a slouched mess of akimbo limbs, arms and legs tangled inextricably as he sat barely propped up against the wall in the space between the room's two beds, head lolling drunkenly. His neck was bent at an angle that was definitely going to make his vertebrae crackle and pop when he straightened, and the tip of his chin rested precariously on his chest, teetering at each exhale. Dean felt a soft smile curve at his lips as he fondly watched his brother, murmuring a soft "girl" as he realised that the kid had clearly sacrificed his own comfort for that of Bobby's. Not that Dean would have expected any less, or done any differently himself, but it still made him smirk affectionately at the sight. And then he noticed that his bed was furthest from the door.

Sam had outdone himself this time, Dean glowered with an eye roll that caused far more pain than it should have. His little brother clearly needed reminding that he was in fact the _little _brother – in principle if not in physical dimension – and Dean would make sure he reasserted his authority as soon as...well, as soon as he was able to do anything more than lie on his bed like a pile of rotting bones. The elder Winchester raised his eyebrows, ruefully acknowledging to himself that any hope of winning that particular battle with Sam was likely to be several days away. He'd need to bide his time.

Looking at his little brother, Dean could see the toll that the past however many days had taken on him. Sam was pale and gaunt, the skin underneath his eyes purpled and hollow. Dean frowned as he caught sight of the faint bruises that peppered his brother's jawline, signs of abuse that were more recent than Sam's tussle with Gordon. What the hell had happened? Dean jotted down a mental note to interrogate Sam about it later, but at that moment the younger Winchester was sagging bonelessly against the wall, and the fact that he hadn't registered either Dean's presence or the scrutiny was testament to just how exhausted he was. The older man sighed softly, concern gnawing at the lining of his stomach. Sam needed to sleep, and Dean didn't need to wake him. Nevermind that pain had started banging its fists against his insides and outsides like a child in a tantrum. Dean had weathered many a childhood sulk – Sam at age four had been a fearsome thing to behold on numerous occasions – and so he would deal with this one too. Besides, he had a feeling his brother was already planning to mother-hen him to death at the earliest opportunity, so why extend the torture?

Laboriously, Dean returned his head to a more comfortable position. One that offered little more excitement than staring straight up at the ceiling's bland, polystyrene tiles. Awesome.

Dean held his gaze rigid, watching with vague interest as his vision attempted to entertain him with multi-coloured patterns and swirls and bursts on the grey space above. The light, gentle breaths that filled the air around him were comforting in their slow, relaxed rhythm, and Dean used their cadence to release the tension in his muscles. He lay in silence, allowing his mind to wander, giving it free rein to stroll down whatever pathway took its fancy. He wanted to know what had happened to him. Really wanted to know. But the more effort he made, the further from his grasp the knowledge seemed to slip. So he submitted to the tide of images and sounds and feelings that washed over him, stayed passive as they distilled like crude oil and separated out into memories, remained calm as the pieces slowly reassembled into something that made sense.

The dementia ward he could remember now and the haunting figures that had shuffled and stared...Jennifer Lawrence, the woman he'd spoken to, and the many people she'd spoken to in return. He recalled the teenager who'd taken pot-shots at random grocery store customers, and the woman whose mother had died in the care home. He'd taken the case behind Sam's back; he could remember that too. And why. Each realisation settled into place, brick by brick, until the foundations of his suspicions were laid.

Somehow he had become infected by the supernatural disease, and somehow, Sam had saved him. That much he was certain of, but the rest was more than a little hazy. The realisation sent bile spurting up his throat in a geyser of nauseating humiliation. He'd seen what had happened to the others, what they'd become...The thought that _he_...No. That couldn't have been him. Sam would have saved him before he'd gotten that bad. That had to be it. But the reassurance rang hollowly.

Dean wasn't quite sure how long he stayed like that, staring into his thoughts, or how long it had been since he'd first woken, but the fact that pain had gradually ebbed from full-on apocalypse to a mere tropical storm made him think that it had probably been a while. That and the fact that nature's call had begun blasting out. Very, very loudly. He'd felt it somewhere in the background of his ruminations, hoping it would go away if he ignored it. But Winchester luck was the very worst kind.

"Dammit," Dean hissed softly as the pressure from his bladder began to expand, the discomfort growing with every passing second. He really needed to go. But he'd been avoiding that conclusion for as long as he possibly could, because even the thought of raising his body into a seated position was almost enough to make him want to hurl. His broken ribs already seemed to grind and crunch with every breath – a fact that would have had Sam twitching and bitching about hospital stays and x-rays if he'd known – so bending and stretching were going to be nothing short of harrowing. "This sucks ass," he spat out on a sharp exhale as he attempted even the tiniest of movements backwards. Sagging back against the mattress, he swore vehemently under his breath. Even the test run had been an epic fail

Waking Sam was out of the question, though Dean was still faintly amazed that the kid hadn't already sensed his big brother's intentions or heard him cursing. If Sam hadn't been as tired as he was, he'd have been on his feet and bitchfacing in two seconds flat. Especially if he'd realised what Dean was planning. But the kid's gas can was past empty, and he needed his rest – not that he'd get much in that ridiculous position – and Dean wasn't about to disrupt it, not for something as trivial as walking across a room. And Sam had already babied him far more than Dean was comfortable with, or was ever allowing again. No, the elder Winchester was sure he could manage just fine. After all, he'd mastered the ability of walking at the age of one, and he'd been doing it unassisted – more or less – ever since.

Right. So why did the distance from bed to bathroom seem to stretch impossibly into the horizon as if he was viewing it through the wrong end of a telescope?

Dean bit his lip in dread, heart fluttering like a caged bird as he placed his hands against the mattress on either side of his body and pushed upwards. Pain lanced through him and he instantly crumbled, managing somehow, to hold back a yelp and avoid alerting Sam to his scheme. "Sonofabitch!" Dean gasped as his lungs shuddered. He collapsed back against the mattress for a brief moment, chest heaving, ribs shifting as he tried to gather his resolve. He could do this. He _would_ do this. He did not need Sam's help.

He _didn't_.

Gritting his teeth determinedly he pushed up again, holding his breath protectively against the pain that sought to steal it from him. Every muscle straining, he inched his body backwards inch by inch until his shoulders touched the headboard behind him, feeling flesh and bone protesting each movement with crashing, percussive throbs. Allowing his back to slump against the headboard while his energy levels regrouped, Dean fought back a retch as his ribs jarred from the impact. He felt the blood drain from his face as a blizzard of white blew across his vision. It took several minutes for his brain to recover from the static interference, the flickering picture gradually being restored to its normal definition. Despite being almost dizzy with exertion, Dean turned his head and considered his next step. And his heart sank.

Sam.

Sam was lying between the beds, limbs everywhere. Meaning that Dean was going to have to practically climb over him if he had any hope of appeasing his bladder. And given that the damn thing seemed to be continually expanding like a water-balloon, Dean knew he was just going to have to get on with it, and fast. But dammit, even the level of anticipated pain was almost unbearable. Dean sighed again, wanting to stamp his foot and bawl like a disgruntled toddler. But just as quickly, he buried the notion. It wasn't the Winchester way. The elder hunter hadn't been allowed such an indulgence since he'd become an adult at the age of four, and he wasn't about to start now. He'd had worse than this, many times when he hadn't even had anyone to fuss over him or help him. Stubbornly setting his jaw, he examined the terrain before him, trained eyes quickly mapping out a passable route. His pathway meant moving forward again though, to the end of the bed, before he could get to a clear spot. Damn Sam and those stilts he called legs.

Though Dean moved with painstaking care, the agony from his ribs knifed him at every change in position, radiating outwards until his body felt as if it was covered in slices and gouges. He'd closed his eyes at some point along the way, he couldn't remember when, so it came as a surprise when his calves finally slid over the edge of the mattress. Wrenching his eyes open and blinking until the blurry film of pain evaporated from his vision, he assessed his progress. He'd made it, he'd actually made it. But he'd taken so long to accomplish even that small achievement that his bladder now felt like a ticking time bomb seconds from imminent detonation. Clearly he was going to have to hurry things along a little.

He placed his bare feet squarely on the floor, pretending that for once the carpet wasn't harbouring some form of toxic bacteria, and stared at them for a few preparatory seconds, reassuring himself that they would definitely hold his weight. That decided, he took as deep a breath as he could without irritating his ribs and nodded resolutely. Then he stared at his feet a little longer, desperately procrastinating. This was going to be a bitch, and he knew it. But it was always better to just rip off a band-aid, Dean tried to convince himself, no wussing-out, no whining. Sure it always hurt like hell for a few seconds, but better that than a slow burn. If he just launched himself from the bed, the same principle would apply, he was sure of it.

Like, ninety percent sure.

Taking another fortifying breath, Dean ignored the niggling ten percent and levered himself upwards. For a brief moment, everything was wonderful, and he wondered why he'd ever doubted himself. But then seconds later his blood seemed to drain straight to the floor, taking his balance with it. The room suddenly swayed and rolled like a ship on choppy waters, and Dean felt his jellied legs instantly begin to give way. _This was a bad idea_, he barely had time to think before he felt himself go down.

There was a grunt and a thud and a gasp behind him. "What the–? Dean!" The elder Winchester could hear Sam frantically scrambling to his feet before large hands grabbed his underarms and held on tight, steadying him and easing him back upright. Dean felt himself fall backwards against his brother's chest, Sam's grasp tightening protectively as he took the bulk of Dean's weight. The younger Winchester gingerly shifted his hands to his big brother's shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"Jesus, Sam!" Dean gasped out in affected indignation, trying to cover the pain his antics had caused with a standard joke, but he suspected his strained voice had somewhat ruined the effect. "You know the rules, dude: you want a cuddle, you gotta buy me dinner first!"

"Are you nuts? What the hell do you think you're doing?" Sam ignored the jibe, voice squawking out several octaves higher than usual as he gently but firmly turned Dean round towards him and insistently began nudging him sternly back towards the bed.

Oh, yeah, Sam was in full-on, over-protective mode. Dean attempted to resist his little brother's restraint, frowning as his swatting hands failed to dislodge Sam's authoritative hold. "Well, I _think_ I'm goin' to the bathroom, Sammy. I gotta piss like a racehorse."

Sam's bitchface looked as if it didn't know whether to do disapproval or disgust, so it settled for both. "Dean..." he began, exasperation turning his eyes a deeper brown. "Dude, look at you, you can barely even stand up by yourself, and you've basically been out of it for, like, the past twenty-four hours! Would it have killed you to friggin' wake me up?"

"What're you talkin' about, Sammy?" Dean deflected, trying not to show how much his brother's words had unsettled him. "I'm fine, and I don't need your help to put one foot in front of the other!" Once again Dean tried to bat away his brother's hands, refusing to acknowledge the fact that they were doing a pretty fine job of keeping him upright. But Sam repelled his attempts with frustrating ease.

"Right, of course, how could I have been so stupid? There's nothing wrong with you; you didn't nearly die, you don't have broken ribs, and you aren't beat to hell. _That's_ why I just woke up to the sight of you taking a nosedive, huh?" Sam scowled at him, surging past 'unimpressed' and hurtling towards 'seriously pissed'. His lips had disappeared into his face, making him look as if he'd just sucked a lemon.

Dean opened his mouth to argue back, more because it was a familiar and rote than because he truly believed his own reasoning, but stopped as Sam suddenly tightened his grip even more. Something in the hold made the words evaporate from Dean's lips. The elder Winchester felt the world shrink around him until they were the only ones in it, and he raised his eyes to meet Sam's. The brothers stood contemplating each other in silence for a few beats, both spellbound by some indefinable power. Sam was staring intently at him, the pockmarked frown on his forehead smoothing out as he swallowed thickly. That was never a good sign. "Dean..." the younger man began, breaking the connection as he shifted his gaze towards an unknown spot over Dean's shoulder. "You gotta...I didn't even know if you were going to wake up. You were...I nearly...I _thought_...You can't just...pretendthat–"

"Alright, alright!" Dean interrupted, easily recognising how upset Sam was from the level of stuttering and stammering. Things were already descending far deeper into chick-flick territory than Dean was comfortable with, so he decided to head his brother off at the pass. "Sam, I get it. I do," he said genuinely with a soft smile, hoping the kid would take the hint and leave it at that. Sam's eyes were gleaming with a suspicious wetness that suggested imminent waterworks, so Dean quickly morphed his smile into a smirk. "But I really gotta go."

Sam flexed his jaw, looking like he wanted to resist the change of subject, but then he relented. He nodded in acquiescence but shot Dean a look that told the elder hunter in no uncertain terms that they weren't done. That they were going to have that 'conversation' whether Dean liked it or not. _Awesome_, Dean grumbled to himself as Sam shifted his hold so that he was supporting more of his big brother's weight.

"You ready?" Sam asked encouragingly and Dean bit his lip to prevent the irritated response that sprang instantly to his lips. _I'm not friggin' five!_ He grouched internally, but outwardly he merely nodded and they moved forward as one, their pace averaging at somewhere between snail and slug. But Dean was finding even that too fast for his battered body. Not that he was about to admit it to his little brother, the fact that Sam was practically carrying him already more than his dented pride could take.

Dean felt himself stumble slightly as they neared the bathroom door, his legs trembling as they tried to keep holding his weight. He caught his breath sharply as his ribs grated together. Sam immediately grasped him more firmly, halting them both as he peered down at Dean in concern. "You okay?"

"Peachy," Dean grunted in response, refusing to meet Sam's probing gaze. He heard the kid's soft huff of frustration but mercifully Sam didn't call him on his sarcasm.

They started forward again, Sam setting the pace more slowly this time. Dean wanted to protest – hell, his bladder was shouting loudly enough for the both of them – but the journey across the room had taken more from him than he wanted to concede. When they reached the doorway of the cupboard-sized bathroom, Dean laid a shaky hand on the chipped wooden frame, preventing them from going any further. "And that's as far as you go, Sammy," he announced, his breathlessness making the words sound far less authoritative than he'd intended.

Sam, of course, was having none of it. He swivelled so that he was blocking the entrance, staring Dean down, his hands switching places until they were clutching at the older man's shoulders; holding Dean back as well as keeping him vertical. "But Dean, you can barely even–"

Dean clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes, more than confident that he could out-stare his little brother. He'd had plenty of practice, and Sam's level of exasperation meant that the big-gun effect of the kid's puppy-dog eyes was greatly diminished. "Didn't know you were such a voyeur, Sammy!"

"And I didn't know you even knew what that word meant!" Sam snarked back.

"Shut-up!" Dean hissed back before squaring his shoulders and raising his chin defiantly. "I think I can manage this, Sam. I'm the one who potty-trained you, remember?"

"No, I _don't_. Thank god!" Sam responded with an expression of deepest disgust, but it was followed almost instantly by an unwillingly amused smile.

The tension easily defused, the two men shared a look filled with veiled affection before Sam reluctantly removed his hands from Dean's shoulders and stepped aside.

"Don't even think about locking that door, Dean," Sam warned sternly as the elder Winchester moved past him.

"Bite me!" Was all he got in response before Dean closed the door firmly behind him.

o0o0o

Sam bit his lip and hovered close to the bathroom door, listening worriedly for any sign or sound that his big brother's balance had faltered once more. But Dean's hearing didn't seem to have suffered as a result of his ordeal – or the sixth sense that he seemed to have when it came to his little brother – and he loudly and irritatedly ordered Sam to go and get his kicks somewhere else. Wrestling with his concern, Sam's desire to give his brother some much needed privacy won out and he paced back across the room towards the small, round table. In a fit of frustration he threw himself down onto one of the chairs, windmilling his arms madly as it tipped backwards and wincing as his lower back took the brunt of the impact.

Righting the chair at the last second, Sam ruefully rubbed the sore spot on his back and leaned forward, eyes on the closed door across the room. It stared impassively back. Taunting him. Lip twitching, he glowered at it, wondering if he was bitchfacing a piece of wood or the brother that stood beyond it.

His gaze abruptly snapped to the occupied bed as Bobby let out a soft chuckle. Sam hadn't even realised his old friend had been awake. The older man was sitting up and shoving aside the quilt with a stiff, creaky swipe. He moved like a wind-up toy that had just run out of juice. "That was real smooth, Sam," The elder hunter commented dryly with a slow shake of his head, eyes twinkling in amusement.

Sam bounced his eyebrows wryly and flashed a brief, self-deprecating smile as he snorted in acknowledgement. "So you're awake, huh?" He asked redundantly.

"Kinda hard to sleep with you two ladies yammerin' away," Bobby's sarcastic response was punctuated mid-way through by an enormous yawn. Despite the hours of catch-up sleep they'd both had, the older man still looked grey and bedraggled, his clothes rumpled and hanging limply from his frame.

Sam studied his old friend and felt a pang of guilt, forehead crinkling as he lowered his voice. "Sorry, Bobby."

But the veteran hunter merely batted his apology away with an unconcerned wave and got to his feet with a groan. Sam could practically feel the kinks ironing out as he watched his friend stretch out his limbs. "How's he doin' anyway?" Bobby asked as he moved slowly to join Sam at the table, lowering himself down onto the remaining chair with considerably more care than the younger Winchester had, punctuating the manoeuvre with a loud exhale.

Sam's attention had returned to the bathroom, but he glanced at his old friend out of the corner of his eye. "He's back to his old self alright," the younger Winchester muttered, surprised at how frustrated he sounded. He knew he ought to be pleased, but could already feel irritation beginning to simmer and hiss in the background. Dean's insistence on doing everything himself was hardly unexpected, but it was infuriating nonetheless. But then he reminded himself of how he'd prayed for his big brother's bullheadedness when Dean had been as pliant and mouldable as a posable doll. How could Sam really complain?

Because he was worried still. Because days of anxiety and fear and guilt and exhaustion didn't just vanish at the opening of an eye. Dammit, couldn't Dean just let himself be taken care of?

"Have you told 'im what happened?" Bobby's question caught Sam off guard, interrupting the younger Winchester's internal calculation about how long Dean should have been taking in the bathroom, and he dragged his gaze away from the still-closed door to give the older man an assessing look.

"No," Sam answered shortly, beginning to turn away when Bobby again latched onto his drifting attention.

"But you _are_ gonna tell 'im?"

This time Sam twisted his body around more fully so that he was directly facing the elder hunter. Bobby's expression was shrewd as he examined Sam's features, his eyes steady as they held the younger man in place. Sam tried to meet his friend's stare, but something stirring beneath the surface of Bobby's gaze sent his eyes shying away. Looking for an out, he focussed instead on the wide gouge that scarred the table surface, wondering vaguely how it had gotten there as he tried to sift through the emotions Bobby's question had scattered. Just what exactly _was_ he going to tell Dean? Sam took a deep breath, eyes still digging at the groove on the table surface. "Of course I'm going to tell him. Bobby–"

"Tell me what?" Dean's still-scratchy voice suddenly rang out, startling Sam and sending him reflexively to his feet. The younger Winchester couldn't believe he'd missed the sound of the door opening, and he mentally kicked himself for his blunder. It figured that Dean would pick that precise moment to make an appearance.

Once upright, the younger hunter whirled on the spot to see his big brother leaning heavily on the bathroom's door-frame, one arm clutched protectively across his ribs, swaying precariously as he stared suspiciously at Sam from beneath hooded lids.

"Dean!" Sam had crossed the room in four strides, hands already outstretched to grasp supportively at Dean's shoulders before he even realised he'd moved. The elder Winchester had paled considerably and Sam could see tiny beads of perspiration beginning to bloom across his forehead. "You alright?"

But Dean quickly batted away the assistance, features stormy as he scanned Sam's face. What he was looking for, Sam wasn't sure, but he knew his brother wouldn't get anything other than concern. "Tell me _what_, Sam?" Dean repeated, voice gaining in intensity even as he trembled slightly on the spot, sending his little brother's worry shooting ever higher. Sam took an instinctive step closer but stopped when Dean removed the arm from his midriff and held up his palm defensively. "Sam?" He demanded again.

Sam frowned at his brother for a moment, wondering at the depth of the suspicion he saw reflected in the elder Winchester's expression. How much did Dean know already? How much had he remembered? Not that any of that mattered as long as his brother was still obstinately trying to remain upright when he looked as if he would concertina to the floor within seconds. "Dean..." Sam began, and then paused as he huffed out an agitated breath, his shoulders sloping dejectedly. "Can we _not_ do this right now? C'mon, let's get you back to bed before you fall on your face. Even you couldn't pull off the carpet-burn look, dude," the younger Winchester determinedly ignored Dean's swatting hand and slipped an arm around his brother's back, beginning to ease him forwards out of the doorway.

But Dean had put down roots. "Sam..." he warned dangerously, but the intimidation he'd clearly been aiming for was sadly ruined by the grimace that suddenly contorted his features. "Ugghh!" He groaned sharply, beginning to bend slightly at the waist, his free arm immediately moving to brace his ribs.

"Okay, enough!" Sam's concern hit tipping point and he decided there and then that there would be no more humouring, no further indulgence of his brother's requests. Dean needed to be horizontal and he needed another dose of painkillers. Anything less would not be tolerated.

But maybe a small incentive wouldn't go amiss either. "If you go back to bed now, then I'll tell you, I promise."

Dean eyed him warily for a moment, seeming to weigh up his options. "Alright, fine," he conceded after several long seconds, which Sam thought probably had more to do with the fact that his legs looked to be threatening imminent collapse rather than anything his little brother had to offer. The younger Winchester nodded briskly, trying not to let his triumph show. The scowl Dean shot him moments later told him he'd failed on a spectacular scale. Easily deflecting the hurled daggers, Sam carefully arranged himself so that he was taking more of Dean's weight, more even than he had during their initial journey. He wasn't happy with the way his brother was quivering from top to toe, and wanted nothing more than to get Dean comfortable and off his feet. The elder Winchester was determined to resist the closeness every step of the way however, and Sam knew that his brother was barely tolerating the assistance. Painstakingly, they inched their way back across the room, Dean's breathing becoming more laboured with every step.

"Hey Bobby!" Dean seemed to brighten as he finally acknowledged the older man, smiling at him as if he'd only just realised Bobby was in the room.

The elder hunter shot him a warm smile, genuine affection radiating palpably from him even as he greeted the elder Winchester with characteristic deadpan. "Good to see ya up and around, son. So, your cereal box still fulla fruit loops or what?"

Sam winced and felt himself stiffen, knew Dean had felt it too, the effect passing between them in a chain reaction as the elder Winchester suddenly tensed beside him. "Bobby!" The younger Winchester hissed in reprimand, but Dean was already speaking, sounding as if a hunch had been confirmed.

"I'm guessin' I got hit by the crazy stick, huh?" Dean's voice was as wobbly as his legs as Sam silently urged him onwards towards the bed.

Sam hurled Bobby a disapproving bitchface as the two brothers finally arrived at Dean's bed. "Dean..." the younger Winchester murmured reluctantly, easing his big brother around so that his back was to the mattress.

"That's it though, isn't it?" Dean continued, his tone flat and muted. And Sam wasn't quite sure what to make of that.

The elder Winchester said nothing more as Sam gently helped him to lower himself back down onto the bed, but the younger man could still feel the tremors that wracked Dean's body; evidence of how much his big brother was trying to keep at bay, both physical and emotional. "Isn't it?" Dean repeated on a shuddering exhale, and Sam could tell from the tightening skin around his eyes that his big brother was grimacing through another spasm of pain.

"Okay, yes. You got infected!" Sam blurted impatiently, concern increasing with every passing second. He slipped a hand behind Dean's back and guided him as the elder Winchester shuffled further back onto the bed.

"How bad was it?" Dean demanded, his cheeks beginning to pinken from exertion...and something else Sam didn't want to think about. The younger Winchester wasn't entirely comfortable with that, but it still beat the ghostly pallor Dean had been wearing for the past few days, even if humiliation and shame were at its core. "Sam?" Dean asked again when Sam continued to chew the insides of his cheeks in silent procrastination, and resisted when his little brother tried to push him down flat.

Sam glanced helplessly at Bobby, who merely shrugged in response. _Thanks for that_, Sam grumbled internally. He tried again to get his big brother to lie flat, nostrils flaring angrily as he realised that Dean was prepared to compromise his health even further out of pure stubbornness. He had to be in agony, and yet he was forcing himself to stay upright. Sam bit his lip, wondering how to approach his answer. He thought about everything that had happened: Dean losing the ability to drive the Impala, nearly killing them both; his big brother crying out his pain over their father's death; the way he'd found Dean in that doorway, battered and bruised; the kidnapping...Dean killing Jud. Sam killing Fiona.

It was too much.

He couldn't do it. He just couldn't. There was no way he could tell his brother how bad it had really been. Dean would be mortified if he knew, if he realised how much of his innermost thoughts and emotions he'd revealed. He'd be devastated. Sam knew he would do anything to spare his big brother that, even if it meant shouldering the knowledge – the guilt and recrimination – alone. Dean didn't need to know something that would only hurt him, torment him. The elder Winchester was too fragile for that, and Sam knew there and then that all he wanted to do was protect his brother. Sam had learned lessons from this, lessons that he wanted to put into practice. But they were _his_ lessons, and there was no purpose to be served by telling Dean something that would only...

Damn.

And then the penny finally, really and truly dropped.

_He told me I might have to kill you_. The words echoed loudly in Sam's head, taking him back to that evening in Oregon, Dean gazing at him with an anguish that looked to be ripping him in two. _He told me I might have to kill you, Sammy. _Realisation began to gather within him like rolling thunderclouds, blocking out all other thought. _How could you not have told me this? Take some responsibility for yourself Dean, you had no right to keep this from me!_ Sam got it now. Jesus, he got it. And being on the other side of the coin toss? It sucked. It was crippling. And it hurt like hell.

He knew the situations were different, knew that the implications could never be truly compared, but he understood why his brother had kept their father's secret now more than he ever had before. How could he blame Dean for that when he was about to do the same thing?

Shaky from the adrenaline rush of his epiphany, Sam almost forgot what his brother had asked just moments before. Scrabbling around for a band-aid answer that would buy him some time, he responded with a stilted joke. "It wasn't that bad, Dean. Apart from the time you stripped off all your clothes and decided to take a stroll downtown, nothing much happened."

Dean merely blinked back, unimpressed.

The two men locked eyes in a silent battle of wills for what seemed like an eternity before Bobby interjected with a loud throat clear. "Well I think I'll let you two get all caught up. I'm gonna go grab a shower."

Neither Winchester so much as twitched.

"Oh, and try not to kill each other while I'm gone," the older man ordered with mock sternness, though Sam could detect more than a hint of irritation. It was enough to snap him out of the unacknowledged staring contest he'd been having with Dean. He barely noticed the curt closing of the bathroom door as he dropped down onto the bed beside Dean, removing his hands from his brother's shoulders to begin picking and fiddling with his fingers as they rested on his lap.

"Dean," he sighed for the umpteenth time when he realised that his brother was still watching him steadily, feeling like a harried parent trying to put a child to bed, "can you just lie down? You need to keep those ribs steady and you need to take your meds."

"Not until you tell me what I wanna know," Dean's response was about as malleable as an iron rod and Sam felt the frustration build up in his chest until he wanted to scream.

But he settled for stern instead. "Don't be stupid, Dean! You can't keep sitting up like that, I can see how much pain you're in."

"I'm fine," Dean dismissed the concern and raised his chin determinedly, putting the mask firmly in place even as his body continued to tremble. But after a ten second stand-off he conceded defeat and began to lower himself downwards, shooting Sam a warning glance as the younger Winchester moved to assist him. "My arms were goin' to sleep," he explained to Sam, as if that was the reason he'd given in.

"Yeah, sure they were," Sam muttered sarcastically even though he was secretly pleased that Dean was finally where he should be. He watched fretfully as Dean settled himself, lips thinning at the cavalcade of winces that trooped across his brother's face. Sam knew he ought to be pushing the painkillers, but this was Dean, and the younger Winchester also knew that picking battles with his big brother could be as painstaking as a hostage negotiation. He'd have to keep that one on the back burner for now.

Once the elder Winchester looked as comfortable as he was going to get without pharmaceutical assistance, Sam bit his lip, taking a moment to build his courage before asking the question he dreaded being answered. Dean wasn't going to rest until they'd had the conversation. "So...what's the last thing you remember?"

"Uh...I um..." Dean was looking abruptly abashed as he flicked his gaze towards the ceiling, avoiding Sam's eyes as his Adam's apple convulsed uneasily. "I couldn't leave that hunt alone, Sam. I just couldn't. When I went to the hospital and I saw those people..." He broke off, shifting to look at Sam again, regret shining in his eyes.

"I know," Sam nodded, no censure in his response. He got it. None of that mattered anymore, not when Dean was alive and safe. "It's okay."

Dean pursed his lips and glanced away again, this time staring at a point somewhere past Sam's arm. "No, it's not. I shoulda told you...I'm sorry." He sounded wretched and miserable, and it cut Sam right to the core.

"For what, Dean?" Sam flapped his arms earnestly. He'd forgiven Dean for that a long time ago, knew he had his own mistakes to face up to. "For trying to save those people?" He shook his head, falling silent for a moment as he searched for the words he wanted to say. His brother never normally wanted to talk like this, usually running a mile when he spied any hint of an apology on the horizon, but dammit, Sam was going to take advantage of it this time. There were things that needed to be said. "Dean...I'm sorry too. I was too caught up in my own crap, too focussed on trying to find Ava–"

"Ava? Did you find her?" Dean cut across him, completely ignoring Sam's apology and ruthlessly honing in on yet another topic the younger Winchester hadn't wanted to go anywhere near.

Sam shook his head slowly, knowing where this was going to go and feeling powerless to stop it. "Not yet. I kind of got a little...sidetracked."

Dean snorted in self-recrimination, eyes cowering away from Sam's. "Because of me." It wasn't a question.

The younger Winchester straightened authoritatively, determined that Dean wasn't going to blame himself this time. "Yeah because of you, you jerk! You think I regret that?" He sputtered incredulously. The extent of his brother's self-loathing never failed to astound him, or break his heart. And Sam knew the stunt he'd pulled in Oregon hadn't done much to help that, or the way he'd behaved when they'd arrived in Peoria. But that was all going to change.

"I'm sorry, Sammy. You probably woulda found her by now if it wasn't for me," Dean was continuing dejectedly, still refusing to connect with his little brother. Yet another thing Sam planned to change. Right now.

Sam reached out and grasped his brother's shoulder, squeezing gently until the older man finally turned to look at him again, albeit unwillingly. The elder Winchester's features were stricken as he stared up at Sam. "Dean, stop," the younger man ordered gently, a fond smile curving at his lips, "you really think Ava means more to me than you do?"

Dean's eyes shot away so quickly they almost left a cloud of dust in the air, and he cleared his throat to fill the awkward silence that had erupted between them. The younger Winchester would have chuckled at Dean's characteristic display if he hadn't been so horrified that his brother believed he was worth less than a girl Sam had barely known for twenty-four hours. He opened his mouth to drive home his point when Dean began speaking.

"So, the last thing I remember..." Dean picked up Sam's earlier question as if the past five minutes had been erased from memory. "I'm guessin' you found my research?" At Sam's stiff nod he continued. "I went to check out that old care home, see if I could find anything hinky. I remember walkin' inside, and then...that's about it. I musta blacked out." He looked at Sam and raised his eyebrows. "Did you find me?"

"No," Sam muttered darkly, thinking of those frightening few hours when he'd assumed the worst. "You were missing for a couple hours and then you turned up back at the motel. That was when you started acting a little weird. It wasn't long after that that I figured something was up. Did some digging." Understatement. But Sam was sticking with his planned censorship.

"What did you find?"

Sam let his eyelids flutter closed for the briefest of moments before taking a deep breath. This was going to be a lot harder than he'd originally thought. How had Dean kept this up for so many months? "Uh...Long story short: we were dealing with a bunch of creatures called Maniae–"

"Mani-_what_?" Dean sounded utterly nonplussed as he frowned up at Sam.

"Maniae," Sam repeated patiently. "Apparently they're Greek...spirits of madness."

"Oh." Dean was looking put-out as he considered this. As if it wasn't quite as badass as he'd been hoping for. Or maybe he'd just finally mastered the embarrassment that had coloured his cheeks earlier.

Hoping for the former but sure he was seeing the latter, Sam hastened onwards with his explanation. "Yeah, it was Bobby who figured it out. They uh, feed on memories, thoughts, stuff like that." Nice and vague.

"And what, they just decided to make me their entrée? And why didn't they just infect everyone?" Sam should have known that vague wouldn't cut it where Dean was concerned.

"I don't know, Dean!" The younger Winchester blurted in exasperation. Why couldn't his brother just leave well alone? "We just figured out what they were and got rid of them. End of."

"Bull." Because it was Dean. "What aren't you tellin' me?" Sam's big brother had been punching holes in his lies since the younger Winchester had been old enough to talk. Why should now be any different? "And how did you get all those bruises, huh?"

"Look Dean, it's nothing, alright? It's over. They're gone. You're okay. I'm okay. Why do we need to go over the fine print?"

"Because I need to know what happened."

"Nothing happened. You just went a little loopy for a while there. Got a whole lot of blackmail material, dude. You're going to be doing my laundry for the next ten years." Sam aimed for a light-hearted smile but fell short of his mark as he saw Dean's pallor go granite grey, the still blooming bruises seeming to brighten sharply in contrast. Worried that renewed pain was the culprit, Sam leaned forward. "Hey, you okay?" He reached out a hand, only to withdraw it halfway when Dean turned his face away.

There was a moment of claustrophobic silence before the elder Winchester spoke, his tone hesitant and quiet as he continued to avert his eyes, dropping his pupils to begin tracing the orange and brown blobs on his bedcover. Sam hid a wince as the image suddenly unearthed memories he'd rather have left buried. "Sam...I saw those people. Talked to 'em. They were sayin' some pretty crazy crap..."

Sam felt his heart go rigid as his brother faltered. "Dean–"

"Did I...say anything I shouldn't have?" Dean pulled his gaze up and skewered Sam with the heat in their depths. The younger Winchester stared back, trying to project an image of calm while chaos reigned within. Dean suddenly looked very small and pale below him, looking at him with a trust Sam knew only too well how hard it was for the older man to give, even to his little brother. But the memory of what Dean had said – about _him_, about their father...it was too potent to let the truth spill from his lips.

"No," Sam shook his head carefully, tension coiling in his muscles as he waited for his subterfuge to again be found out. "Nothing more than you usually come out with when you're high on pain meds. I promise."

"Well, that's reassuring." Sam couldn't quite tell if his brother believed him or if he was just being sarcastic; they both knew that Dean's lips had a propensity to be somewhat loosened when he was under morphine's influence. Sam had once recorded a whole hour's worth of his brother's ramblings after Dean had badly dislocated his shoulder, gleefully playing back the recording in its entirety when the elder Winchester was more lucid. Dean had done impressions of everyone from Bobby to Sam's longest serving sixth grade teacher, he'd waxed lyrical about a pie shop he'd discovered somewhere in the bowels of Wisconsin (_I'm tellin' you, Sammy, it was like the Casa Erotica of pie!_) and he'd taken it upon himself to give his little brother a sermon in how to pick up women in bars, because Sam _needed all the help he could get_. That last one Dean hadn't minded so much when he'd heard it back, telling the younger man he should keep it for personal reference.

If Dean genuinely doubted Sam's claim, he didn't call his little brother on it. To the younger hunter's relief; a euphoric rush that ended about as quickly as it had begun when he saw a flood of pain cascade down his big brother's features, Dean's eyes screwing shut and his jaw clenching as he rode out another spasm.

"You okay?" Sam demanded, brows colliding in concern.

"Yeah," Dean grunted through gritted teeth, not even putting any real effort into the ruse this time. Which was never a good sign.

"Okay, that's it. I'm getting you some more pain pills," Sam announced and rose from the bed, ignoring the elder Winchester's protest as he strode over to the room's kitchenette and briskly reached for a glass.

"I'm fine, Sam!" Dean insisted, his voice cracking and crumbling as he started trying to push himself up. "I don't wanna go back to sleep, dude. All I've done is friggin' sleep!" He whined, sounding for all the world like a wailing child.

"Stay put," Sam ordered sternly, twisting round to nail his brother with a commanding glare. "You need to rest, Dean." He huffed out an exasperated breath when the elder hunter merely pouted in response, unknowingly reinforcing his already childlike persona. "Okay, look. I'll ask Bobby to go get some takeout and I'll wake you up when it gets here."

"You'd better," Dean went for threatening but ended up sounding like a sullen teen. Well at least he was maturing, Sam thought, hiding a smile despite himself. Sort of.

Sam turned back to the bottle of pills that sat on the counter. Quickly, he filled a glass and shook out a couple of pills before padding back across the room and returning to his position on the edge of Dean's mattress. He'd been about to set the water down on the nightstand when Dean made an emphatic gimme gesture with his fingers. Remembering the way he'd had to help his brother the night before, and easily recalling how humiliated Dean had looked, Sam decided not to challenge the demand, reminding himself again that he was picking his battles. Dean was doing what he was told, something that was too much of a rarity to risk ruining, so Sam dutifully handed him the glass. He fretted slightly as Dean eased himself upwards to transfer the glass to his injured hand before gesturing for the pills with the other.

Within seconds Dean was glassy-eyed and languid, and by the time Bobby emerged from the bathroom he was snoring softly.

o0o0o

The next time Dean woke up, he woke up fighting.

Shadowy flickers of violence and pain had haunted his dreams; the feeling of being restrained, lost, tormented. A low, scratchy voice had wheezed into his ear while the world dissolved around him. There had been terror, confusion. A wild, devastating grief.

So when Sam had gently patted him on the shoulder to wake him up as the kid had promised he would, Dean had come off the bed in a wailing, spitting, frenzy of fists. Only to jackknife straight back down again when his broken ribs nearly carved him in two. Sam had clearly been torn between outright censure and hovering concern, the younger man realising that Dean had erupted from a nightmare but still disapproving of his big brother's ill-advised contortions. Sam had fussed and scolded like it was going out of fashion – which it _was_ as far as Dean was concerned – bitchface and puppy-dog eyes somehow merging into something the elder Winchester didn't know whether to laugh at or cower from.

The images and surround-sound effects from the dream had seemed to cling to the periphery of his mind like cobwebs, snagging his attention every so often as Sam grumbled and bitched. Dean hadn't quite known what to make of them; they felt like memories, and yet he didn't feel any connection to them. It didn't seem like they had come from _his_ eyes and ears. Nevertheless, they had troubled him, and made him think of the conversation he'd had with Sam earlier. He didn't know how much of the truth his little brother had been telling him, wasn't entirely sure now that he even wanted to know. But this was _Sam_. This was Dean's brother. The man who, just days earlier, had reamed Dean out for not being truthful, for not revealing what their father had said. Who had friggin' taken off and left his big brother behind because he'd been so pissed. No, Sam wouldn't be that hypocritical...

He hoped that was true even as he acknowledged to himself just how flimsy the kid's story had been. Dean knew all about the desire to protect, even if its sudden development in Sam felt strange and unnatural. Or maybe Sam was trying to protect himself as much as he was his big brother, and that was something Dean could live with. Mostly.

Dean had shrugged off the thought, deciding that he would go with the tried and true method of burying any and all unwanted emotions, and easily deflected all of Sam's worried questions. Nose catching the scent of something meaty and dripping with grease, the elder Winchester had loudly and dramatically announced that he was starving, neatly cutting across any further mother-henning that Sam might have had planned. Bobby had returned with takeout of the artery-clogging variety – the kind that Dean loved best – and with news of the few remaining live victims of the Maniae.

The elder Winchester had tensed at that, feeling the burger start to congeal nauseatingly in the pit of his stomach as he'd waited for the verdict. He could easily picture the way Jennifer Lawrence had wafted towards him in the hospital corridor, could easily recall the sound of Hailey Meier's monotone voice passively reciting the alphabet. The thought of them and the others dying while he had survived had been almost more than he could handle. But to his relief, they had apparently all made a full recovery. Their miraculous return to normal had caused something of a media storm, and Bobby had described a great many newspaper articles featuring glowing pictures of the victims alongside shots of the baffled, defensive medical staff. He'd tossed the elder Winchester one of the local papers he'd picked up, and Dean had had to swallow back an enormous guffaw – in deference to his ribs – at the front-page picture of a flustered, red-faced Doctor Phelps hurrying from the hospital entrance. It wasn't quite the _Tribune_, but Dean thought it somehow fitting that the supercilious neurologist had eventually gotten his wish for media stardom.

Recalling his visit to the hospital once more, Dean had shied away from anything approaching heartfelt, staying to the safer outskirts as he mused out loud about the young, buxom, orange secretary there...Poppy, Penny...

_Polly_, Sam had supplied sheepishly, fiddling awkwardly with his fingers as he'd informed Dean that his brother was unlikely to get a date after the younger Winchester had unceremoniously hung up on her a few days ago. Dean had merely shrugged internally: you win some, you lose some. There were plenty more women out there, and really, he knew he didn't have a hope of getting any action until his ribs had healed – mostly because Sam was unlikely to let him go anywhere unsupervised for a good long while. Aloud however, he'd taken the opportunity to tease his brother mercilessly for being a total amateur when it came to charming women. The kid had taken it well, though Dean had seen something dark flit across his brother's features; something he wasn't going anywhere near.

Because he knew that look, and it never meant anything good.

Though Dean had been happy to hear that the others had recovered, he couldn't help regretting the way things had gone down before he'd gotten sick. He'd lied to Sam, had gone behind his little brother's back after he'd promised he'd support the kid in the search for Ava. No matter how well-meaning his reasons, nor how much Sam told him it was okay, he'd still been wrong to do that. He and Sam, they had to stick together. Apart from the precious few others they allowed into their lives, they had only each other. And when push came to shove...when push _had_ shoved, it had been them against the world. And that was the way it was going to be from now on.

As long as that was what Sam wanted, he corrected himself uncertainly, a pain that was all too familiar – and non-physical – twinging uncomfortably as he remembered waking to an empty room back in Oregon.

Returning to the present, Dean shook himself slightly as he watched Bobby slap his thighs with finality and rise from his seat. "Well, now you two idgits are back to your normal selves, I got another ass to go pull outta the fire down in New Mexico," he paused, seemingly for dramatic effect before continuing, "I'll be a couple days away, boys, so if you could keep _your _asses outta trouble for, oh, let's start with a week..." He left the last few words hanging, eyes glinting with a seriousness that stood at odds with the gruff amusement in his tone. The older man looked first at Sam, exchanging a wordless sentiment Dean couldn't hope to decipher, and then at the elder Winchester.

Dean, who had been preparing a sarcastic comeback, felt the jibe dissipate from his mind as the depth of the affection in his old friend's eyes punched him solidly in the solar plexus. He'd known it had been bad, what had happened to him; Sam's constant fretting had been as big a clue as any, but then the kid could be such a drama queen sometimes. If he'd ever doubted how close it had been however, Bobby's expression erased any lingering denial instantly. They stared at each other for a brief moment that nevertheless felt like an eternity, their gazes tussling over something indefinable before Sam loudly interrupted.

"Well, Dean's not gonna be going anywhere for at least that long..." The younger Winchester eyeballed him sternly. It wasn't even a threat, it was a promise.

_Bitch_, Dean thought, and not affectionately this time. "Don't I get a say in this?" He demanded, wincing when it came out sounding more like a petulant whine. Dammit he needed to get his mojo back or he was going to lose all credibility.

"No!" Sam and Bobby tossed back simultaneously, twin glares beaming back at him with a synchronicity that had to have been practised. Annoyed at their tag-team response, Dean clenched his jaw and went for the best bitchface he could muster, but it rebounded off the two men like a fly bouncing against a windowpane.

Bobby just shook his head, chuckled and looked at Sam. "Good luck," he offered sceptically before tossing Dean an easy wave and turning towards the door.

Momentarily forgetting that he was supposed to be in the midst of a hissy fit, Dean called out softly. "Hey, Bobby!" When the veteran hunter pivoted to face him, the light shining in through the open doorway giving his silhouette an almost ethereal quality, Dean cleared his throat awkwardly, settled his eyes on a point just above the veteran hunter's cap and mumbled out a quick "thanks". He ignored Sam's knowing smile, and Bobby's suddenly warm expression, and dropped his gaze to begin picking at the bandage around his wrist.

"I got a whole truck load o' parts needin' looked at back at the yard. Guess I just got myself a volunteer," Bobby accepted the apology with typical pragmatism, though the smirk playing at the corners of his lips told Dean that his surrogate uncle was definitely going to milk that one for all it was worth.

The elder Winchester felt his discomfort disappear as he rolled his eyes in mock exasperation before shooting Bobby a cocky grin and waving the older man on his way.

When the door clicked closed, Sam leapt up from his chair as though it had suddenly sprouted spikes. Dean shot him an amused glance, before realising that his brother was still firmly in hovering mode. And heading his way. "How you holding up, dude? You okay? You need anymore pain meds?"

"Sam, enough with the Clara Barton routine already!" Dean complained as the younger Winchester reached his bedside and made to sit down. "I'm fine." Sam made it halfway down before the elder hunter sent him a warning glare and then gestured to the other bed. "Personal space, dude!" The younger man pursed his lips in dissatisfaction but nevertheless obeyed the command, thudding heavily down onto the mattress Bobby had vacated earlier with an exasperated sigh.

Dean raised his eyebrows in faint disbelief at the victory, feeling the triumph resonate hollowly as a seismic rumble of pain spread through his body. He did need more painkillers, but he wasn't about to tell his little brother that. Heck he'd only just managed to get Sam to give him some room to breathe. He looked at the closed door, Bobby's departure feeling like an ending of some sort, and then back at his brother, studying him. There were taut lines around Sam's eyes, hardening the planes of his cheeks as he swallowed and chewed his bottom lip. "You alright?" Dean asked softly, realising again that he was not the only one who had suffered.

"What?" Sam looked up, surprised at the question. "Yeah," he answered just a little too quickly, eyes bouncing off Dean's and spinning off around the room. "It's just..." he trailed off hesitantly, returning his gaze to his brother. "What happened to you, it made me do some thinking..."

_Oh that can't be good_, Dean groaned internally. "C'mon, Sam! What have I told you about doin' that?" He chided with an affected levity that was about as convincing as it was sincere.

"Dean, just hear me out!" The younger man began leaning forward earnestly, features growing urgent. "Look, about what happened before–"

'Before' could have meant any number of crappy things that were best left in the past, but somehow Dean thought he knew where this was heading. He sighed heavily, ignoring the pull on his ribs, and leapt in to interrupt. "Sam, I thought we were past this. What dad said–"

"What?" The younger Winchester was looking genuinely nonplussed at his big brother's response before finally seeming to realise what Dean had meant. "No, this isn't about what dad said...well, not exactly anyway."

Now it was Dean's turn to look perplexed. "Then what?" He stared, wide-eyed at his brother, trying to figure out what the hell had gotten the kid's panties in a knot if it wasn't their father's cryptic warning.

"Look, Dean..." Sam began and then broke off, taking a deep breath as though to gather strength. Dean watched him closely, concerned.

"Sammy, you alright?" He repeated his earlier question, worry spiking when his brother didn't immediately respond.

Sam wasn't looking at him when he started speaking again, as if connecting with Dean would stop him from saying what he needed to. "When I took off on you, it wasn't about being pissed. Not really. I mean, I _was_. Pissed, I mean. But–"

_Okay, left field..._Dean tented his brows in confusion. Where the hell had that come from? He swallowed the lump that had suddenly risen in the back of his throat. He really didn't want to bring all that crap up again. The last time they'd spoken about it they'd nearly come to blows. "Sam, what the hell are you talkin' about?" He feigned ignorance as his traitorous heart began pounding erratically.

Silence ticked back and forth for a few seconds, Dean beginning to worry at the edges of his bandage again as he waited for Sam to speak.

"Quit picking at that, Dean!" The younger man scolded softly as he reached out a hand to swat at Dean's. When the elder Winchester desisted and turned to look at him, feeling all kinds of awkward, Sam cleared his throat and picked up the earlier thread of their conversation. "I needed to know what was going to happen to me – still do – and I thought you were gonna try to stop me." So they were back to that again. Awesome. "And...I wanted to make sure that you weren't gonna get caught in the crossfire of whatever my destiny means. I couldn't deal with–I couldn't handle–"

What? Dean felt his thoughts go into a tailspin. Sam thought he had been _protecting_ him? From what? Surely he wasn't still harbouring worries that he was going to hurt his big brother..."That's not gonna happen!" The elder Winchester argued vehemently. Why didn't Sam understand? "It's why I didn't wanna tell you in the first place, man."

He hated the way his voice cracked on the last word; hated his brother's sad smile. "I get it, Dean. I do. But you don't know that," he said gently, addressing Dean as if he was a trauma victim. "You can't know that. But I need to find out. And I meant what I said back in Lafayette..." He paused for a beat before spearing Dean with the intensity in his eyes. "I really need you with me on this."

The elder hunter puffed out an agitated breath, cocking his head at Sam as he considered his answer. "I ever give you the impression I wasn't gonna be around to back you up?"

There was a shallow sigh, a quick jerk of the head. "No, that was all me, going it alone." There was regret there, deeper than Dean had imagined or expected, and it threw him. Sam heaved in a gulp of air and glanced away for a moment before turning back. "Dean, I'm sorry I took off on you."

"Sammy..." Dean groaned, feeling all kinds of unwanted emotions spark into life, jolted awake by Sam's defibrillator revelation. He couldn't have put into words what he'd felt when he'd realised his brother had ditched him, years' worth of fears and wounds utterly disabling him until he'd had to pull it all together to go chasing after Sam. He hadn't even known if his little brother would want to see him. To hear Sam's apology should have meant everything, but somehow it still hurt.

"No, I mean it," Sam's voice had grown in strength and vehemence. And determination. "I was wrong to walk out, we need to have each others' backs, man. I mean, Dean you almost died, and I was so distracted that I didn't see it until it was nearly too late." The younger man was almost visibly shaking as he took another shuddering breath. "We need to stick together, Dean. Alone we get shot at, kidnapped, sick..."

Dean didn't quite know what to do with that. It was everything he'd ever wanted to hear from his brother; an assurance that he wouldn't be alone, that Sam actually wanted to stay. But hadn't he heard it all before? He wanted to believe it, wanted to believe it more than he wanted to listen to the lingering doubts. But actions spoke louder than words. "Didn't know you were so romantic, Sammy!" He deflected distractedly, thoughts still whirling.

Yes, actions did speak louder than words. And Sam had dropped everything to save his life, more times now than Dean could keep track of. All of those moments had to mean more than the few times his brother had abandoned him.

"Dammit Dean, would you be serious for a second!" The bitchface was back in full force.

Of course they did. The past few days ought to have told him that more than anything else. "I dunno what you want me to say, Sammy," he said solemnly, "I'm not plannin' on goin' anywhere."

Sam met his gaze head on, heat blazing from his eyes. "Me neither."

There was a long, pregnant pause as the two brothers looked at each other in silence, the oath between them strengthening and solidifying. It felt like something momentous had passed between them, and Dean revelled in the reinforcement of their bond even as he registered just how far into chick-flick country they'd strayed. Again. And he couldn't have that. "So, what now?" He asked, breaking the spell. Albeit reluctantly.

Sam seemed to shake himself back to the present. "Now...nothing. You're gonna get some rest for a few days and then we're going to pick up where we left off."

"Ava?"

"Ava," Sam confirmed with a nod. "We're going to find Ava. You and me"

Dean watched his brother quietly for a moment. Yes, they were going to find Ava, he thought. And even if they didn't, Dean knew now that they were going to be okay.

"Yeah," he agreed, before shooting Sam a cheeky smirk. "Okay, well if you're done gettin' your chick-flick kicks, dude, toss me the remote. I got some catchin' up to do."

"I don't think there are any Oprah reruns on at this time of day, Dean." Sam snorted with a teasing smile.

"No, but I betcha I can find some Bozo the clown reruns!" Dean growled back.

"You do that and you'll be on salads for the next week, Dean!"

"Bitch!"

"_Jerk_!"

**The End**

o0o0o

_So that's it! We're done!_

_Thanks so much for reading and I really hope you enjoyed the story. _


End file.
